


Maybe Someday We Could Be Friends

by msred



Series: Starting Over [2]
Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Loss, POV Original Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-08-20 04:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20221453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/pseuds/msred
Summary: My world ceased to exist when my husband died. I ceased to exist. Or, at least, the version of me that I’d always thought I’d be for the next 50 years or so did. Whatever was left wasn’t anything I had prepared for. I certainly hadn't prepared for movies and movie stars and meeting my celebrity crush when I was too broken to really even care.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> So, I had to abandon my whole "no first names" rule for this one. The narrator still never gets named (so please, by all means, throw yourself in there if you wish - and change out the leading guy in your mind, if that works better for you), but writing this one without his name was just too clunky and awkward. Besides, this one doesn't just have clues as to who he is, it has big flashing neon signs. Oh, and the tags, of course.
> 
> Also, this one's a little different from the others. It's going to cover a several-month time span and will be a string of situations strung together to tell the whole story. I think it's going to be two chapters (only because the word count seemed a little ridiculous for a one-shot).

_ (Mid January, Year 1 _ )

My world ceased to exist when my husband died.  _ I  _ ceased to exist. Or, at least, the version of me that I’d always thought I’d be for the next 50 years or so did. Whatever was left wasn’t anything I had prepared for. We’d met when I was 14 and he was 16, then started dating a little over a year later and dated for the next six years (with a year or so break early in my college years for both of us to do a little growing up independent of one another). I was almost 22 when we got married, and we stayed that way for the next twelve and a half years. That wasn’t just the life I’d lived, it was who I was. I was the high school sweetheart, the partner, the Air Force wife. It was my identity, or at least the biggest part of it.

This is going to make me sound like a walking cliche or self-love meme, but, honestly, that’s probably what I was. I was  _ that girl _ , the one who put everyone else first, who put on the smile even when everything hurt. Always had been. Anxiety? Always. Depression? In waves. Pouring all of me into taking care of everyone else, from my family, as a child, to my friends, then my husband, and, eventually, to my high-school students, so that I felt I was worthy of something, anything? You bet your ass. 

But then my husband died. Fighting a battle that wasn’t his to fight - wasn’t anyone’s really, except the administration that had dragged an entire military into it, over … ego? I still don’t really understand the motivations, but then, I’m not a politician or a foreign policy expert (neither were the people in that administration, but that’s not really important to my story). I didn’t know what to do. Inside, I was nothing anymore. My identity had ceased to exist. Outside, I did the best I could to do what I’d always done, bigger and better, even. 

In my eight and a half years of teaching, I’d never simply copied a lesson plan from a previous year, at the very least modifying it for my new crop of kids, but usually doing things completely differently from one year to the next, throwing time and energy into planning new lessons and activities each time around. I’d been told by multiple students that I gave more thorough feedback than any other teacher they’d ever had, and with over 100 English students each year, that was no small task. Each year, I’d had certain kids, outsiders, usually, who I connected with and called “my kids.” I had more Mother’s Day cards and gifts than any other childless woman I knew. I’m not bragging on myself or tooting my own horn here, I never thought I was the best teacher in the world, or even at my school. I just thought that I owed it to my students, and to my co-workers and administrators, to always be doing more, trying to improve. It was the only way I felt I could be good enough. Outside of my identity as “wife and partner,” the way I threw myself into my job, the way I gave so much of myself to everyone else, was all I thought I had.

When my husband died, I threw myself even further into my work. I hired a former student who attended a local college to walk my dog, Millie, in the afternoons then bring her to me once school was over so I could stay there and put in more hours working than I previously had. The only time I allowed for “me” was when I walked Millie before school and the hour every day I spent at the gym. I stepped up my role as “school mom” as much as I possibly could. In the months after his death I even went so far as to bring one former student into my home when her already problematic mother just … disappeared. I had lost a the largest part of my identity, and I threw myself into being everything for everyone else, because I didn’t know how to be anything for myself. By about eight weeks after it happened, I was set into a routine that could be considered “normal,” if exhausting, and, quite frankly, lonely.

Then I got the call from the studio executive. He made it clear that they were going to make the movie no matter what, and they were going to do it soon; what had happened with my husband’s unit was a big deal, bigger than there had been in several years and bigger still because it was a “new war,” Iran being considered separate from the almost 30 years we’d spent fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. They wanted to get the movie out there as quickly as possible. If I agreed to sell the rights to my husband’s story, I could have some say in how the story was told, and they could use his real name. If not, they’d make it one of those fictionalized “inspired by real events” things and use a fake name. Either way, they were moving forward. I had three weeks to make my decision.

I agonized. I talked to my friends, the first real conversation I’d had with most of them in almost two months. I talked to a couple of my adopted kids, ones who had graduated and were no longer my students. I talked to my grandparents, knowing that no other members of my family would provide anything beneficial (not beneficial to me, at least, if they could find a way to benefit from the situation, they certainly would). And, of course, I talked to my in-laws. My mother-in-law and her husband, unsurprisingly, pushed for my involvement. They were taken by the idea of him being seen as a “war hero” on the big screen. (They probably also relished the opportunity to make themselves the center of attention and admiration in their own circles.) My father-in-law was more hesitant, worried about his son’s name and story being used in what he was afraid would amount to a pro-war or pro-government thinkpiece, but he promised to support me no matter what I decided. 

Halfway through my “thinking time,” based more on what I thought my husband would have wanted - for me to be taken care of, for there to be at least a measure of accountability in the telling of the story - than anything else, I called the executive back and agreed. He nearly fell over himself thanking me (I knew a game was being played, that I was being glad-handed, but I played along). Apparently he already had a potential director in mind, but the director would only agree to the project if I agreed because he didn’t want any part of the “unofficial” version of the story. That, at least, I could respect. There was also a story outline in the works, based on information they’d been given from other people who’d been on the deployment (people who were getting credits and relatively small paychecks as “consultants” but whose actual identities weren’t necessary for the film), but they wanted to know if I was going to be on board before any actual dialogue was written. They had someone in mind for that too, apparently, an up-and-comer who had written and directed a documentary on mental illness in vets returning from combat and written and produced a short film on the same topic. The executive I spoke to was thrilled to be able to call his writer and director a full week and a half earlier than he’d expected to get the ball rolling.

***

_ 9 weeks later (late May, Year 1) _

I had no real sense of the speed at which these sort of things were supposed to move, but nevertheless it felt fast to me. Nine weeks after I agreed to not only let the studio use my husband’s actual identity in the movie but also to serve as a writing consultant myself (which really just meant that they would send me pages of dialogue occasionally and ask me to look them over for anything that seemed glaringly out-of-character for him), I got a call letting me know that the director, locations, much of the cinematography and photography teams, the editing team, and  _ almost  _ all the actors had been secured. The director wanted to call and talk to me himself about his vision for the movie; it wasn’t really a request, just a courtesy heads-up on the part of the studio executive who had seemed to start to see me as a daughter over the past months. 

I was sitting at my desk at school over two hours after the school day had ended when I got the first call from Jon Favreau. A year earlier, I would have been shaking too hard to answer the phone. At that point, it was just another transaction. Not because I had become too cool to be starstruck, but because my admiration of him was outweighed by the knowledge that, no matter what, we were talking because he was preparing to direct a movie about the events that led directly to my husband’s death.

The call was pleasant, and he was as warm and gentle as I could possibly hope for him to be. He seemed to have the utmost respect for the story he was telling and for the fact that it involved the lives of real human beings. When he asked me, at the end of the call, if I had any questions for him, I had only one: Why had nearly everything fallen into place except the actor who would play my husband? I couldn’t be sure, of course, but I truly felt that he was being sincere when he told me that it was because my husband, and therefore the casting of that role, was the most important piece of the story. The other men and women who had been on the deployment with my husband, particularly the two others who had died with him, were all incredibly important from a human standpoint, of course. But from a mission standpoint, and therefore from a story standpoint, my husband had been the leader, the decision-maker, and, ultimately, the primary sacrificer. If they didn’t get that one just right, they didn’t get the story right. It was the same reason they hadn’t sought to use the actual identities of so many of the other airmen who had been on the same deployment (though everyone who had been asked had agreed) or employed any other special consultants outside the Air Force itself.

“Don’t worry though,” he’d assured me, “we’re close. I’ve got someone really, really great that I’m working on. He really wants to do it, really wants to be a part of this story, we’re just trying to take care of some legal stuff.”

***

_ 5 ½ weeks later (end of June/beginning of July) _

It had been 17 weeks since that first contact with the studio executive who contacted me about legally obtaining the rights to my husband’s story and his identity, but it had all felt so abstract, unreal, until Mr. Favreau, along with a handful of assistants and a few producers, came to Virginia to meet with me and some of the higher ranking members of my husband’s squadron who were also helping with the movie. Then suddenly, everything seemed to be moving at warp speed.

That Monday, the studio catered a lunch in one of the hangers on base for the squadron and their family members, including the families of the other two airmen who had been killed and me, which was followed by a brief meeting including Mr. Favreau and the rest of his team, the producers, the other consultants, and myself. It was just a formality, really, a chance for everyone to be properly introduced and for the producers to sell their ideas for the movie in-person to everyone involved. Mr. Favreau gave a brief overview of his vision for the film, nothing he hadn’t already told me, and I was invited to leave before things got “too boring” as everyone else stayed around to talk about the specifics of some of the more tactical and logistical aspects of the film - Air Force rules and regulations, weapons, planes and other equipment, all that sort of thing.

I had a one-on-one meeting scheduled with Mr. Favreau for that Thursday, but just before lunch on Wednesday, while I was at school facilitating a help session for my upcoming Advanced Placement students, he called to ask if we could move up our meeting.

“I’m so sorry to spring this on you, I really am, but some scheduling things came up and it would be great if we could meet this afternoon instead of tomorrow. You name the place, although something not too public would be better, for obvious reasons.”

It’s not like I could really say no, and I had no real reason to want to anyway. My help session window only had 30 minutes left, so I invited him to come to the school that afternoon. It doesn’t get much more “not too public” than a high school in the middle of the summer. I sent him the address and instructed him where to park and which of the numbered doors to meet me at and told him to just send me a text when he had parked.

I was engrossed in revamping a lesson plan I’d used at the end of the school year that had just finished, since it was still fresh in my mind, when he texted to say he’d arrived. I closed my eyes and dropped my head to my desk when I realized I’d gotten so involved in my work that I’d lost track of time and was still sitting curled into my desk chair with a blanket over my lap and a school hoodie pulled over my dress. Oh well. It’s not like I was looking to seduce him or anything. I slipped my sandals back on and hurried down the hall to the door I’d told him to meet me at.

“Good afternoon my dear! Thank you so much for your flexibility.” He pulled me into a hug when I opened the door for him. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.” He took in my attire with a bemused expression.

“No,” I shook my head and chuckled a little. “I had a few kids come in this morning, and I’ve just been using the time since to get some work done. Can’t hurt to get ahead for next year, right?”

He just laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to have summers off?”

“That’s the myth, isn’t it?” I tucked my hands into the pocket of my hoodie. “Anyway, my classroom is just down the hall,” I inclined my head in that direction, “and I figured that was as good a place to talk as any.”

“That sounds great, but uh,” he looked over his shoulder back out into the parking lot. There was only one other car on that end of the lot besides mine and what I assumed was his rental. I didn’t immediately recognize the man pulling a backpack from the passenger seat, but we’d hired a couple new teachers for the next year and I assumed it was one of them, getting a head start on working in his classroom. “We’ve got one other person joining us. That’s why I needed to move up our meeting, actually. I need him to meet with the higher ups at Langley and the only time they could do that was when we already had our meeting scheduled tomorrow.” 

I looked at Jon’s small smile, his soft eyes that looked at me then back out to the parking lot, and let my eyes drift back out to the man who had made it to the sidewalk leading to the doorway we were still standing in. There was a definite familiarity about him, his gait, maybe, or the set of his shoulders, or the NASA hat that could have been anyone’s, considering that there was a NASA research center less than three miles away. But it wasn’t just anyone, I realized, as he got close enough for me to get a look at the eyes under the brim of the cap. My mouth went dry and my hands began to fidget involuntarily inside the pocket of my hoodie, rubbing the cotton between my fingers and thumbs. 

Jon grinned and clapped him on the shoulder over his backpack strap once he was close enough. “Let me be the first to officially introduce you to the incredibly talented man who has committed to tell your husband’s story.” 

He dipped his head so that his face was obscured by his cap, but I saw the light blush that colored his cheeks before he did. “Thanks man,” he said, and stuck his right hand out to me. “It’s really, really nice to meet you, I’m -”

I jerked my hands out of my pocket and ran them down over the skirt of my dress before pushing my right one out for him to envelop with his much larger one. “Yeah, no,” I cut him off, accidentally, “I know who you are.” He smiled. “I’m sorry, that was rude. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I just get excited. And nervous. And I talk a lot anyway, so …” I trailed off and he laughed.

“You’re good,” he told me, still holding my hand (which I was pretty sure was trembling a little bit). “Hey, you know what, I’m a hugger, is it okay if I hug you?”

“I, um, yeah. Absolutely.”

He stepped forward and wrapped both arms around my shoulders, leaning down a little until his cheek pressed against my hair above my ear. (And oh god, I thought, my hair. The outfit was bad enough, but halfway through the morning, while leaning over my desk poring through a book with a student, I’d grabbed the nearest pencil and swept my hair up into a messy bun on the top of my head with it. Both of these very professional, very successful people were going to think I was just one big mess.) I went to hug him back, but wrapping my arms around his waist felt too intimate, so I tucked my arms under his then hooked my hands up to rest on his shoulder blades, like I would with one of my kids. 

He was still smiling, first down at me then over at Jon, when he pulled away. How many minutes - hours even - had I spent staring at that smile on a computer or phone screen, back before everything went to hell and I still had the luxury of fangirling?

“Um, okay then,” I said, still trying to compose myself. “So I guess we should go to my classroom now.” 

“Lead the way,” Jon said.

We got halfway down the hall and I stopped dead in my tracks, my head falling and both hands coming up, folded almost as if in prayer, in front of my nose and mouth. “I’m just warning you,” I said, not turning around to look at the men behind me, “this is going to be really embarrassing for me.”

“Why?” the actor asked behind me.

“You’ll see.” I took a deep breath, shook my head at myself, and led them the rest of the way to the classroom. “I apologize for the student desks,” I told them when we got into the room, “but if it’s any consolation, I have a couple 17-year-old boys in here every day bigger than either of you.” Both men laughed. “But, if you want, I can go grab a couple chairs from down the hall.”

“No no,” Jon shook his head, “this will be fine.” He headed straight for a desk in the front row, but his colleague -  _ our  _ colleague, I guessed, technically speaking - continued to stand just inside the doorway. 

He moved slowly, turning to take in the entire room. “This is a really nice classroom, you’ve made it really ... comfortable,” he said as his eyes moved over the stocked bookshelf in the corner and the small ottomans and pillows beside it. “I don’t see what’s emb -Oh.” He stopped abruptly when his gaze had made it to my desk, and the poster just above it, a grin filling his face and his head dropping, probably to keep me from seeing it. “Are you,” he cleared his throat and moved to a desk, “are you an artist?”

“No,” I sighed, “but some of my students are, and they like to gift me their work.”

On an open patch of cinder block wall just above and to the right of my desk, right where the students couldn’t miss it if I was in the front of the room teaching, was a poster that one of my students made for me based on something she had seen on Pinterest. “When is it okay to interrupt while teaching?” it asked in large, bold letters across the top. “Fire!” it said, below an illustration of logs being licked by flames. “Major injury!” and “Very sick!” were accompanied by cartoon drawings of a figure encased in a full-body cast and leaning on a crutch and another with her face contorted in agony and a green substance spewing from her mouth. “You have coffee!” was in the bottom left corner below a lovely drawing of a steaming mug of creamy looking coffee. Finally, in the bottom right corner, the poster exclaimed, “Captain America/Steve Rogers/CHRIS EVANS is here!” The drawing there was different from the others. There was a cartoon female head with my hair and pink hearts for eyes, and out of her head came a thought bubble containing the only realistic drawing on the board, Cap himself, complete with shield and Nomad beard.

“I used  _ The First Avenger  _ to introduce a unit on the hero’s journey last year, and one of my girls brought me that a week or so after we finished watching it.” 

“Huh,” he leaned back into the desk and nodded once, “you  _ taught _ that movie?”

“Yeah,” I wheeled my chair around so I could sit in it without the desk between me and them, “it went really well, actually. It’s a perfect example of the hero’s journey because it hits all the steps of the journey and all the archetypes, and it was really high engagement for the kids.” I always got excited talking about that unit because of how well it had gone. “They had to do a project once we finished the movie, and they turned in some of their best work of the year.” He smiled a little. “ _ And  _ it was the last three weeks of school. So in every other class they were complaining about having to even open a book, but in here they were watching your movie then actually getting really into the projects they made afterward. I saved nearly all of them to show future classes, because I’ll definitely be doing some version of the unit again.” Without any real thought or expectation, more on auto-pilot than anything, I added, “You should see some of them.”

“I’d like that,” he told me, and he sounded really sincere when he did. “I would’ve never thought good ole’ Cap would be the subject of a high school …” he trailed off, unsure. 

“English.”

“English class.” I’d only just met him, but I was pretty sure I heard pride in his voice. “And it went well?”

“Really well,” I affirmed.

“Wow. Nice.”

Jon had listened, smiling, throughout the whole exchange, but I could tell he was ready to get down to business. “So,” he clasped his hands together on the top of the desk, “you know I wanted to talk to you about your last set of script notes,” I nodded, “and since we were able to get Chris here, I thought it would be great to introduce the two of you as well.”

Chris had turned serious, and he looked up as he pulled his copy of the script and a folder out of the backpack he’d carried in. “I want to do this right, that’s really important to me. I know there’s no way to do it right without your input, and ultimately, you being happy with the outcome is my primary goal.”

He really had a way of oozing sincerity and making a person feel important.

“That means a lot to me, really.” I gave him a weak smile, the most I could muster over the topic at hand.

“Alright, so Chris has a script and a copy of your notes. Let’s have a look and make sure you’re good with the changes.”

***

_ One week later (early July, Year 1) _

“Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me again and let me pick your brain,” Chris said as I led him down the same hall we’d walked the previous week. “I just, I really want to be able to get in the right place, mentally. I’ve, uh, I’ve been told I can overthink things, so I didn’t really want to force Jon to sit through all that last week. Unfortunately for you, you’re stuck with me.”

“It’s really not a problem,” I turned back to smile over my shoulder at him as we passed through the doorway into the classroom. “I have nothing else going on right now, and honestly, it’s touching. I really appreciate what you’re trying to do.”

“Of course. Hey, look at that,” his voice rose a little, “a grown-up chair!”

I laughed. “Yeah, well, I was a little more prepared this time. Please, have a seat.” I motioned for him to sit in the chair I’d borrowed from my classroom neighbor and positioned across the desk from mine. “This feels a little bit more like a professional working environment, right?” I settled into my own chair so that we were face-to-face over my desk.

“Sure. I mean, I was fine the other way too, but yeah, this definitely works.” His smile was meant to be disarming, I think, but it made me nervous. For one thing, I was finally starting to get starstruck. For another, it was really sinking in to me that I was going to have to talk to him in detail - personal detail - about my late husband, which was something I hadn’t done with anyone, even the people close to me. “So,” he settled back into the chair while I was distracted, “how was your weekend? Did you have a good holiday?”

I shrugged. I’d never really done a lot for the Fourth of July, we’d barbecued some years but that was pretty much the extent of it, and that year I’d just stayed at home on the couch with Millie and Victoria, my unofficially adopted daughter, and watched, almost embarrassingly, all three  _ Captain America  _ movies. (It wasn’t actually because of having met him a few days earlier, it was something Vic and I had done together the year before, when my husband was deployed, and we’d decided to make it a tradition. I didn’t have the heart to back out on her.) “It was quiet. Uneventful.” He nodded. “How about you, you didn’t spend the weekend in this area, I’m guessing.”

“Nah. I went up to Boston, barbecued with the family, shot off fireworks for the niece and nephews. It was fun.” His smile was so easy. It honestly made me jealous. I tried to smile back, but it was hard. I certainly couldn’t match his level of genuine comfort and ease. 

“That’s good,” I nodded. “Family time is fun.” I didn’t add what else I was thinking, which was, ‘with the right family.’ I took a deep breath and dropped my chin into my hand, elbow propped on the desk. “So. You had some questions for me?”

“Wow. Right down to business.”

“Sorry.” I closed my eyes and scrunched my nose a little. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be short. I just figured you came for a reason, you’d want to get to it. I don’t want you to feel like you have to, I don’t know, butter me up first.”

“Eh,” he waved a hand at me dismissively, “I’m in no hurry. I just thought I’d make a detour through here before we start filming next week and, ya know, try to learn some things. You’re the only thing on my schedule today, for a couple days, if needed.

The movie was going to film in New Mexico. They were trying to make what Jon had described to me as a “more human story about the effects of war,  _ not  _ a war movie,” and that meant no huge budget and a relatively short production time. Instead of actually making the movie in the Middle East, they were using the American southwest, and they planned to be completely finished filming within three months.

“Well,” I blushed a little. I wasn’t used to people going out of their way for me. And yes,  _ really  _ it was for the movie, but it had the immediate effect of being for me as well. “I’m honored. Really. I feel like you’re doing more than you have to, and that means a lot.”

“Like I said,” he shrugged. He seemed to do that a lot, “I want to get this right. I don’t mind at all spending some time with you to make that happen.”

I studied him for a few seconds. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be sitting across my own work desk from  _ Chris Evans _ , let alone doing so in order for him to pick my brain about a movie he was preparing to make about my own husband. An earlier version of me, a  _ different  _ version, at that point, would have been giddy, unable to sit still or concentrate on anything other than staring at him and trying to figure out the least obnoxious way to ask for a picture. 

“You know,” I started, letting out a deep breath, “you are not at all who I expected when Mr. Favreau told me he had an actor he was working on.”

His brow furrowed just a little bit and he looked almost concerned. “No?” I shook my head and he put on a slightly less easy-looking smile. “What, no resemblance?”

I actually laughed. “That’s not what I meant, but no, actually, you look  _ nothing  _ like him.” He smiled a little bigger. “Okay, maybe the eyes a little bit. He had really blue eyes too.”

His own eyes softened and he leaned forward onto the desk. “What else? Tell me about what he looked like. You never know, maybe I can pull it off. Movie magic.”

I shook my head. “I think the closest you’ve ever been was  _ Winter Soldier,  _ but I don’t see you slimming down that much in a week, and I won’t ask you to dye your hair blonde like that again. Not that,” I rushed to cover what could be considered an insult if taken the wrong way, “you  _ need  _ to slim down. You look great. You always look great,” he looked up at me from under raised eyebrows, smirking just a little, “but he was just, you’re more … He was a runner. He had run a marathon and several half-marathons and usually put in at least 40-50 miles a week. He was really thin. And taller than you. You’re more muscular, more of an athletic build rather than just thin.”

He was laughing at me, just softly, by the time I’d finished. “You done?” I groaned and nodded. “I know I’ve put on some weight over the years, you don’t have to feel bad about it.” 

“No! That’s not -”

He laughed and reached for my hands where they were wringing on top of the desk, pinning them down with one of his. “I’m joking, I’m  _ joking _ .” His eyes twinkled. “It’s all totally fine. Really. Do you have a picture, maybe?”

“Of course.” I reached for the framed photograph on the corner of my desk, one from just about a year before he’d been killed. He hated pictures and would never willingly let me take them. But we’d been at a promotion banquet honoring him and about 15 other men and women, him in his most formal dress blues and me in a floor-length, one-shouldered navy gown, and a contracted photographer was taking photos all throughout dinner and the ceremony. He could say no, make terrible faces, and hide from me and my phone all he wanted, but when a photographer hired by the Air Force stood in front of us, his only choice was to smile for the camera.

Chris pulled the photo across the desk and studied it for several seconds. “Wow. You’re wearing heels?” I nodded. “He  _ is  _ tall. And blonde.”

“Six foot four,” I confirmed, taking the picture from his hand as he passed it back to me and setting it back on the corner. 

“You look happy.”

I smiled down at the picture. “I was really proud of him.”

He gave me a soft look and nodded, then went on. “So, aside from being too big, too short, and not blonde enough,” he winked at me, and under other circumstances I’d have thought I was being flirted with, but instead I just thought he really needed to make people feel comfortable, “why didn’t you think I was right for this?”

“No, it’s not that. I’m thrilled that it’s you. You’re one of my favorite actors. Clearly,” I inclined my head toward the poster over my shoulder and put on a small, embarrassed grimace. “Honestly, I just kind of expected someone I’d never heard of, not someone already so established and successful.”

He nodded. “I get that. And, to be perfectly honest with you, there are definitely merits to casting someone like that when you’re trying to tell such a personal, intimate story. Less likely you’ll have to contend with someone’s ego, for one thing. So, on that note,” he sighed and spread his hands, palms up, on the desk, “I guess a good place for us to start is, what concerns do you have? About me, and how you see me doing this role.”

I folded the fingers of both of my hands together and brought them up under my chin. I sat in silence for a minute, maybe more, and he just waited while I thought. “Honestly?” he nodded. “My biggest concern was that they would cast a Republican.” I put on a small smile so that he could interpret it as a joke if he wanted to.

He just looked at me for a few seconds, then, finally, “I … you’re serious.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Sort of. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I get that acting is  _ acting _ , and it’s not like I think that because he was a Democrat, he couldn’t be played by a Republican. And I  _ definitely  _ trust Mr. Favreau. But,” I took a long, deep breath and shook my head, “my biggest fear was that this would become just some big ‘Rah rah, America is perfect, our military is so badass, let’s re-stoke the patriotic fires with another war movie,’ thing. Don’t get me wrong,” I rushed to add, “obviously I support the men and women of our military. And I certainly don’t hate America. But we’re kind of a mess right now,” he lifted his eyebrows and nodded, “and if my husband’s identity is going to be used to tell this story, I want it to be honest. And I  _ don’t  _ want it to be used to gloss over or distract from some of the problems that we so desperately need to work to fix. I just worried that if they had cast someone who was openly conservative, or, god forbid, supportive of the current administration, it wouldn’t matter how honest the movie was, it would get overshadowed by the politics of the person.”

He looked like he was thinking over what I’d said, his eyes narrowed a little and one hand plucking at his bottom lip. Finally he sat back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s actually a very valid concern. But,” a small version of that easy smile was back, “how do you know I’m not a Republican?”

I actually scoffed and my eyes fell closed for a second, my head shaking. “I follow you on Twitter.”

His head fell back and he laughed, the sound melodic and somehow calming. He put his hands up in mock surrender. “Fair point. Hey, I should follow you back. If that’s okay,” he added quickly. 

The giddy fangirl in me, a facet of myself that I didn’t know even existed anymore, it had been so long since I felt giddy over anything, stirred a little. Once upon a time it would have been a dream to have  _ Chris Evans  _ see and acknowledge one of my tweets, let alone follow me back. “Yeah, of course. That’s,” I pointed to the Cricut-cut letters stapled to the bulletin board to my right, “the handle for my professional account, my teacher-Twitter.” He pulled out his phone and began typing and I scribbled on a sticky note. “And this is my personal one. It’s a private account.”

“You have two?” He quirked one eyebrow up as he reached for the sticky note.

“Yeah,” I sighed. I nodded at the handle on the wall, “I’ve had that one for about three years now, since I attended a professional development session about the use of social media in the classroom. That was mostly about how it can be used for networking, sharing resources, things like that, but it’s also a really good way to get out information to my kids, share things they’re doing in the classroom or brag on them, just generally to connect with them. I do sometimes post some non-school-related, personal-ish stuff on there, but I keep it very student-friendly. Comments on sports or movies, embarrassing but harmless anecdotes about myself or my dog, funny stories about coffee mishaps -”

“Coffee mishaps?”

“Oh yes,” I snickered. “I drink a lot of coffee. There tend to be mishaps.” He grinned, and my phone buzzed as he tucked his own back into his pocket. “The private one is newer. I just started it last summer. I kept seeing things I wanted to re-tweet or comment on, but I couldn’t.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Why couldn’t you?”

“This is a very conservative community. How many Trump signs did you see on your drive in?” I paused and watched the realization cross his face. “Exactly. I’m ‘strongly discouraged’ from saying anything in my classroom that might be considered me trying to impose my views on my students or use my position of authority to influence them. It’s supposed to be like that across the board, in all of public education, really, and I don’t have a problem with that. I’m the adult, they’re kids, I don’t want them thinking that they’re going to be punished for disagreeing with me. But around here that’s only really enforced if you lean left-of-center.” He pulled a face and shook his head. “So, even online, anything anti-Trump, pro-choice, pro-woman in general, really, pro-gun control, anti-wall - you get the idea - anything like that is totally off-limits. I couldn’t re-tweet you, for example.”

“Right,” he nodded. 

“Finally I got so tired of seeing things I wanted to comment on, or even just like, and not being able to, and having things of my  _ own  _ to say, and not being able to, that I made a second account and made it private. I don’t, like, not let someone follow me just because we don’t agree on everything; I don’t mind being challenged and I actually enjoy a good discussion, but I do limit it to people who I know aren’t going to get pissy and shut down on me because I say something, I don’t know,” I looked to the ceiling and waved a hand through the air, “in support of gay rights. I’ve only let one current student follow me, and he’s a rising senior - a  _ gay  _ senior, not an easy thing to be around here - who adopted me as his mom when he was a freshman.”

His brow furrowed and he appeared to be chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. “Hmm.” The force of the scoff made his head bob. “I hadn’t thought about that. I mean, I get what you were saying about not using your authority to have undue influence, but it really just kinda sucks that you have to pretend to not even have your own views. I mean, shouldn’t we be teaching young people how to have a civil discourse, not pretending that differing views don’t exist?”

“It’s like you’re reading my mind,” I sighed, and smiled at him a little sadly. “Unfortunately, the powers that be, and by ‘be’ I mean ‘decide if I keep my job,’ see it differently.” I pulled one leg up into the chair and wrapped my arms around my knee. “Um, anyway,” I changed the subject before I went off on a rant, “I should probably warn you, if you look through my personal one at all, you’re going to see a good bit of yourself. Up until the first of the year, anyway. You won’t see much at all since then. I’ve backed off social media quite a bit.”

“Right,” he nodded, “the re-tweets.”

“Yeah, the re-tweets, and,” I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling then down and to the side, avoiding making contact with his gaze, “gifs.” I looked in his direction and waited for a reaction. He just looked back at me. “When I created the account, one of my kids - and I mean one of  _ my  _ kids, she actually moved in with me recently when her mom just kind of took off on her - challenged me to only use gifs of you or from your movies when I wanted to use one. And I … can’t say no to a challenge. It’s a problem, really.” He laughed. “If I’m being  _ completely  _ honest, your tweets and how much I related to them, how much they made me want to be able to speak my own mind, were a big part of what drove me to create a private account. So, using gifs related to you became kind of an inside joke between Victoria and me.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” We laughed a little together, me mostly out of embarrassment, him, I think, out of some desire to put me at ease. “Okay, so aside from what I can see on your Twitter, what should I know before we start filming?”

We spent a few hours together that afternoon. I filled him in on everything from the way my husband had taken his coffee to the details of his running habits to his (really embarrassing) pet name for me. And before we left, he asked to see those projects.

***

_ 2 months later (early September, Year 1) _

Jon and Chris both kept in touch while they filmed in New Mexico. Jon would email me short videos of scene rehearsals and ask if I had any input on Chris’s mannerisms or his line delivery. Chris communicated more through Twitter direct messages. He had clearly been making his way (slowly) through my profile, because occasionally I would get a DM from him in response to something I’d posted, typically political things, but my favorite was when he sent me back my own post of my dog in her Captain America harness, her on her back with her legs in the air, with the comment, “Really glad I’ve already given up the shield, I could never compete with that!” He did text me once, though, right before I went back to school. He said, “I saw on your censored account that you go back to work officially tomorrow, and I just wanted to say good luck! Don’t stab anyone with a pencil during a meeting.” I was touched at his genuine kindness, and also by the fact that he’d paid enough attention to know that my first week and a half back was all meetings and trainings. 

Just before Labor Day, I got a call from Jon letting me know that he, Chris, some of the other cast members, and part of the crew would be back in my area right after the holiday to do a few days’ worth of filming on base and that he hoped I would meet with him and Chris, if possible. And over that weekend, I got another text from Chris, a picture of Dodger, his head on what I could only guess was Chris’s thigh, wearing a collar that resembled a shelf of classic, leather-bound novels. “I saw this and thought of you, but I don’t think Dodger can pull off stealing your job quite as well as your girl did stealing mine,” the text read, then continued, “I hear we’ll be seeing each other again soon, looking forward to it!” 

Jon had asked if I would be willing to come on base to meet with him and Chris that Wednesday, after they’d met with the base commander and several others about the filming that was set to begin the next day. When I got there after school, Jon took my hand in both of his and squeezed, but Chris went straight in for the hug. He leaned down, slipping both arms under my own so that mine fell over his shoulders, and squeezed around my ribcage. 

“How are you?” he asked as he pulled away.

“Good,” I smiled. “Tired. The first week of school with actual students is always exhausting.” I shrugged as he pulled out a chair for me. “It’s a good exhaustion, though. How about you? Good Labor Day?”

“Yeah,” he grinned, “the big guy over there,” he gestured across the small table we sat at toward Jon, “threw a big party on-set on Sunday. He invited a bunch of people from the base there, the one near Alamogordo -”

“Holloman,” I supplied.

“Right! Holloman. We’ve had some men and women from there come in as extras, so they were invited, along with a bunch of others on base, and all their families. It was a really good time. He suggested trying to bring you out,” I looked over to Jon, but he just smiled and dropped his head, “but I didn’t think the timing would be very good for you, with school starting yesterday and everything. So if you’re upset about not being invited, be mad at me, not him!”

I laughed. “Of course not. There’s no way I could have flown half-way across the country right before school started. I actually spent part of the weekend  _ at  _ school. That was a really awesome thing to do, though.” It really was, and I appreciated the thought, and the effort, even if I didn’t get to participate in it. It was good of them to do that for the men and women of Holloman, and while Chris laid all the credit at Jon’s feet, I’m sure he did just as much as his director to make the experience a positive one for everyone there.

Jon just shook his head and cleared his throat. “It was my pleasure to do, really.” He smiled. “Well, I know you’re tired, and busy, so we won’t keep you longer than necessary. I wanted to meet with you because Chris had an idea, a good idea, and we wanted to run it by you in person.”

“O - Kay.” I was a little hesitant because I couldn’t begin to guess what kind of idea he’d had. I turned my attention back to Chris.

“Right. Wow, nothing like being put on the spot.” He laughed. “Okay, well, I was thinking. The point of the movie is to show personal impact, humanity within a very inhumane situation, right?” I nodded. “So far, all we have is your husband interacting with his peers and his troops. By all accounts he was a great leader and always put everyone else before himself, but by your own account, he wasn’t close with any of them. He didn’t develop personal relationships with them the way …” he trailed off, looking for an example, “the way you do with your students. The movie we’ve made so far definitely shows his leadership, his lack of ego, and how important it was to him to speak and look out for those he was assigned to lead, but I just feel like it’s still missing that truly personal piece that we really wanted to show.” My brow furrowed. I didn’t know where he was going. “So … we want to put you in the movie.”

My eyes widened dramatically and I think I even jumped in my chair. “I -”

“Hear him out,” Jon cut me off, kindly but firmly.

Chris went on, his hands moving, animated, as he spoke, “We talked to a few people, some of the guys your husband worked with back here before the deployment, and it turns out the only thing he really had an emotional attachment to, was you.”

I could probably guess who they’d talked to, and it wasn’t exactly wrong. My husband was a really good man. As Chris had said, he always, always put other people, particularly the young men and women below him (his “dudes and dudettes,” he called them), first. He was an absolute rule-follower, but I one time listened to him on the phone telling his superior that he would personally disobey a command and tell his troops not to come to work on what, for most of the base and the rest of our area, was a snow day, because their presence was not necessary, given that no planes could fly under the conditions, and all that would happen if they tried to come in would be that they were all put in undue danger. In the days leading up to the deployment, he sent them all home from work, even though, technically speaking, they still had work to do, because they needed to spend time with their families before they flew out. He could also be an asshole, though. It was never gratuitous, but unlike me, who often “gave in” far too much with my kids, he was incapable of sugarcoating things. He didn’t feel a need to have a lot of friends, and he certainly didn’t need to be friends with his troops. More than once he’d told me that he didn’t need friends because he had me.

“Um,” my brow furrowed and I let my eyes fall closed as I shook my head, thinking, “what - what does this mean, exactly?”

“Well,” Jon took back over, “if you agree, we would shoot one short scene, him preparing to leave. We learned from some of the people we talked to that you didn’t come with him on base to head out that morning, so we thought we would do your last few moments together.”

My heart clenched and my chest ached when I drew in a long, slow breath.  _ Our last few moments together _ . That was a heavy thought.

“We would put it in as a flashback, toward the end of the movie,” Chris added softly, and his hand moved across the tabletop until his fingers barely touched my forearm.

The room was quiet for a minute or so while both men let me think over what they had just proposed. It was a lot to think about. On the one hand, a version of me being included in the movie had never been part of the deal before. I wasn’t sure if that’s something I was quite up for. On the other, they had a point. I hadn’t seen what they’d shot so far, but I’d read the script, and I’d heard Chris read parts of it, and I knew my husband and what he was like in work situations. I could see how the story could come off cold, detached. I didn’t want that. It wouldn’t really achieve the effect the movie was meant to achieve, and on a more selfish note, it wouldn’t paint the best image of my late husband, and he deserved better than that. It was the only right thing to do, really.

“Who - do you have an actress in mind?”

Chris and Jon looked at each other across the table. “Well -,” Chris started.

Jon interrupted, “That’s tricky. We don’t have a lot of time. We’re here for a week and a half, then back in New Mexico for two weeks of reshoots, and that’s it. We really need to be in post by October for things to stay on track.”

“Right,” the whole situation confused me. “So, what are you going to do?”

Chris looked at him and Jon nodded. “We want you to do it.”

I actually laughed. It was the only thing I could do. I was  _ not  _ an actress. “I’m not an actress.”

Chris smiled, softly. “You don’t need to be. You’re you. It’s your story to tell.”

Jon added on quickly, as soon as Chris stopped talking. “It would be one short scene, that’s it. You tell us what you guys did that morning, within reason, of course,” he added quickly, “we’ll do a couple dry runs, and we’ll shoot. It’ll just be the three of us, a few cameras, and a couple ADs. The whole thing should take less than a day. I was thinking we could do it next weekend, before we head back out west, that way you wouldn’t need to take off from school.”

“This is,” I paused and shook my head, “a lot.”

“It is,” Jon agreed. “And I’m really sorry to spring it on you last minute like this. But I think it would make a great addition to the film, and it would be really, really great if you would agree. I know what I’m about to say isn’t fair, but I have to say it; this one scene could make or break the emotional impact of the film, so think about your husband’s story.”

I tilted my head back to look at the ceiling. He was right. It wasn’t fair. But it wasn’t wrong, and I’d already had that thought myself. 

“Hey Jon,” Chris said, quiet, “give us a minute?” I didn’t look down, but I heard Jon’s chair push back from the table and tracked his footsteps as he walked to the door. Chris’s hand cupped my elbow. “Hey, this was my idea, so if you hate it, blame me.” I finally looked down. “But I really do think it would make a world of difference for the movie. And, for the record, even if we did have more time, I would still think you should be the one to do it. You may not be an actress, but no one else can bring the authenticity to this that it deserves.”

I just nodded and chewed on my bottom lip. “What if I’m terrible?” I finally asked. “Won’t that, I mean, what if I make it worse?”

“You won’t.”

“I really want it to be good.”

“It will be.”

“And what if,” I sighed and my voice shook, “what if I can’t do it? What if it hurts too much and I just  _ can’t _ ?”

His hand slid up just until his palm rested on my tricep. He managed to wrap his large hand all the way around my arm but kept his grip loose. “I don’t think that will happen. I think you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.” He looked into my eyes, not looking away even when I squeezed them closed and a couple tears spilled out. “But if it does,” he almost whispered, “we’ll call it and I’ll take the fall. I’ll say that something about the scene didn’t work for me and I’ll make sure it’s on my shoulders, not yours. I promise.”

I trusted him. I didn’t know why, but I did. My eyes still closed, I nodded.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had a way of pulling me into new territories I'd never expected. It scared me, but I didn't hate it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previous chapter notes still apply.
> 
> Also, really sorry, but apparently this is going to be three chapters, not two. I guess I'm even more wordy than I realized ... But once I got going, I realized I just needed more to really tell the story I wanted to tell. Thanks for sticking with me!

_ 1 ½ week later (mid-September, Year 1) _

“Mom,” Victoria growled at me, snatching a q-tip off the vanity and swiping under my eye with it. “You have to  _ sit still _ .”

“I am!”

“No you’re not! You’re like, shaking.”

I groaned, but before I could defend myself, I heard footsteps behind me.

“How are things going in here, ladies?” Jon asked from the doorway.

Victoria sighed. “Well, I’d be done already if  _ my mother. Would sit. Still. _ ”

“I can’t help it! I’m nervous.” I nearly whined as Victoria none-too-gently tilted my head back with a hand under my chin. “And don’t call me that. I love it when you call me ‘Mom,’ but when you say ‘my mother’ like that, it makes me sound really old. I’m not old enough to actually be your mother. Biologically.” 

“You’re only four years younger than Tabitha.” Tabitha was Victoria’s actual biological mother, who was 39, compared to Victoria’s 19. The same age difference as my mother and me.

“Still too young.”

“ _ Tech _ nically …” She trailed off and I could see her raised eyebrows and pursed lips in my mind with my eyes closed. Her sass was my payback for making her job harder. “Okay, done.” She dotted at the corner of my eyelid once with a brush and I heard her take a step back. “Unless you want me to add the eyelashes. I still can.” I opened my eyes and she was turned, looking at Jon, who was still standing in the doorway of the small room.

He looked at me for a few seconds and I felt more scrutinized than I ever had. “No, I think we’re good. We don’t want to overdo it for this.”

Victoria nodded. “Right. Natural is good. Well, once I see her on camera under the lights I can add something if I need to, but I think we’re good for now.”

“Victoria,” I scoffed. “I couldn’t begin to tell you the last time I wore this much make-up. The scene is supposed to be me in my living room on a Saturday morning. There’s no possible way I can need more.”

Her head whipped around and she eyed me. “Really. What would you have said to me back in the spring if I’d let little miss  _ O-liv-i-a,”  _ she raised her voice, her tone mocking as she mentioned the other girl, one of my former students and the definition of a high school diva, “go on stage without your once-over because  _ she  _ said she had enough make-up on? You know stage make-up is nothing like normal make-up.”

Victoria was a wonderful make-up artist. Like, thousands-of-followers-on-Instagram, makes-hundreds-of-dollars-every-weekend-during-homecoming-and-prom-season wonderful. She’d also been the make-up director for the musicals I’d directed at school for the past two years. I’d mentioned her to Chris that day we met one-on-one in my classroom and he’d even sent me a direct message one time commenting on a tweet I posted with a picture of some of her work, ever the proud mom. He’d been the one to suggest that Victoria do my make-up for the scene we were shooting together. He justified it to Jon by saying that anything that could be done to make me more comfortable would only benefit the scene. I had a feeling Jon only agreed because it was such a small scene and because, as I’d just pointed out to Victoria, it took place in my living room on a Saturday morning when I hadn’t been wearing any  _ real  _ make up. She just had to make sure I wouldn’t look half-dead on screen. 

They’d also decided to use my actual living room for the scene. That one came down to a matter of convenience and cost as much as anything else. My house was available, it was free, and they didn’t have to get any special permissions to use it. They also wouldn’t have to create a room that already existed. Jon and a couple of his ADs had come in on Friday evening to give my house a once-over. They’d moved around some furniture and evaluated my electrical situation in preparation for the lights and other equipment they’d have to set up before they were able to film. Chris had come too, talking me through some of the talking points in layman’s terms that I could understand. When Jon and one of the ADs had started to bicker about wattage and sound absorption, Chris had suggested that we join Millie in the backyard. It was good to see my girl have someone to play with again. I never neglected her - I made sure she was well-fed and had her twice daily walks every day that the weather allowed - but my husband had been her playtime buddy, while I was the one she went to for snuggles, and I just hadn’t been able to muster up the energy, physical or emotional, to take over that role. Chris ran around the yard with her, throwing a tennis ball and chasing her down when she refused to give it back to him. At one point he even ended up on his back when he wrestled the toy away from her and went flying backward, laughing the entire time.

I left Victoria’s bedroom and walked down the hall to find my living room completely transformed. The big things - the couch, coffee and end tables, the big cozy La-Z-Boy recliner Millie and I often shared - were still in place, but everything else, including the table and wine rack in the dining area that bled into the living room, had been moved into the den to make room for cameras and lighting equipment. There were more extension cords than I’d ever seen in one place.

“Alright,” Jon’s voice broke me out of my stupor, “you still good with what we ran through this morning?’

I nodded. “I think so. I mean, I think we walked through everything. Is Chris good?”

“Yep. He’s just in his trailer changing. Why don’t we get you under the lights while we wait.” 

I stood in the middle of my living room while they turned on their lights and cameras. Jon waved Victoria over to stand with him behind a monitor as he directed me to turn first in one direction, then another. After another solid minute of scrutiny, they agreed that my make-up was fine, and Victoria thanked Jon for the opportunity (he’d had a contract drawn up allowing her to use stills from the film to promote her own business), hugged me, and headed out to meet up with some friends. She’d been told she could stay for the filming, but she’d confided in me the night before that she was afraid of embarrassing us both if she got to spend that much time around Chris. If possible, her youth and lack of shame meant she had been an even more fervent fan of him than I had. Once I’d seen her out, I settled into the recliner with Millie, who was also going to be a part of the scene, to wait.

I didn’t have to wait long. Not 30 seconds after Victoria walked out the front door, Chris walked in. When the door opened and he stood in the entrance to my living room, my heart stopped. One hand flew to my chest and the other dug into Millie’s fur. “Um, that’s, no, Jon,” I stuttered out, “that’s not right.” I pointed at Chris, who had started to look back at me in concern, almost panic.

“What’s up?” Jon made his way over to me from the kitchen counter, where he’d been going over some notes with a camera woman.

“That’s not - he shouldn’t be in uniform.” I still felt sort of frantic, but I was trying to keep my voice steady. “They don’t wear uniforms if they’re travelling commercial, which they did for that trip. The Air Force does a lot, actually. They don’t want to draw attention to being military, so they wear civvies.”

Chris’s eyes fell closed and he lowered his head, his arms crossing over his chest and hands tucking into his armpits. Jon dropped a gentle hand to my shoulder. “Look, I understand why this may bother you, when the whole point of having you involved was to preserve accuracy, but this is one time we’re going to have to … take a liberty.” I looked up at him, confused. “I get what you said about not wearing uniforms for travel, and I don’t want you to think I don’t care about that, but even if it’s not 100% factually accurate, the scene will carry so much more emotional resonance if he’s in uniform. I’m really sorry if that upsets you, but it’s just the way we need to do it.” I only nodded up at him, eyes blank, until he walked away, then I stared down at Millie’s back, where my hand moved repetitively back and forth. 

“Hey,” Chris’s voice was low but close. I lifted my head and he was right in front of me, kneeling in front of my chair. “I’m really sorry about this. I know the … authenticity of everything was really important to you. I didn’t realize you hadn’t been told. I didn’t actually realize that this,” he tugged at the front of the ABU blouse, “wasn’t right.”

I sighed and shook my head, lifted one shoulder. “It’s not that. I mean, I get what he’s saying, and he’s right. This will have way more emotional impact than you walking out in jeans and a polo shirt. I just,” I drew my feet up into the chair and rested my chin on my knees as Millie watched me warily and resituated herself, “wasn’t expecting to see you walk in wearing his uniform, with my last name taped across your chest. It was a kick in the gut.”

He closed his hand into a fist and used it to cover his mouth, but I still heard the, “Shit,” he ground out. “We fucked up,” he said once he pulled his hand away. “I am really, really sorry.” 

I tried to smile at him. “Don’t be. There’s no reason anyone would have thought to run this by me first, especially not you. You’re just doing your job.”

He frowned and his eyebrows knitted together, but before he had a chance to say anything else, Jon was calling over to us to ask if we were ready to get started. Chris looked up at me and I forced a small smile and nodded. He hesitated, but I made a shooing motion with my hand and after opening his mouth one more time then closing it without saying anything, he made his way to the opposite end of the hall.

_ I sat in the recliner with Millie, scrolling mindlessly through my phone to distract myself from what was happening in my real life. I heard his steps from down the hall and took a shaky breath as I set the phone on the end table.  _

_ “Well Flea,” he sighed, “I think it’s that time.” The nickname made tears prick the backs of my eyes. _

_ I looked up at him and nodded, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust what would happen if I opened my mouth. He came to the chair and bent over me to bury his face in my neck. He stayed there for the longest time, even as Millie whimpered and tried to climb between us, licking both of our faces. He reached blindly for her, scratching at the scruff of her neck, and did the same to me. His hand wrapped around the back of my neck and I heard the sniffles that told me he was crying. When he finally pulled back he turned away from me and lifted one arm to bury his face into his bicep. He cleared his throat, blew out a heavy breath, and walked behind my chair to pick up the last of his bags, which he took to the front door.  _

_ I shooed Millie off the chair and met him halfway on his way back and, still without a word, wrapped my arms around his waist as his went around my shoulders. I pushed my face against his chest and he pressed his into the top of my head. “I’ll text you as soon as I can.” I just nodded. Finally, he pulled back and pressed his forehead to mine, his eyes squeezed shut and tears collecting on his lashes. One more deep breath then his lips pressed against mine once, twice, three times, before he took a step back and ran his hands up and down the backs of my arms. “Shit. Okay. I have to go.” Again, I nodded. I walked him to the door where he promised once more to text or call at his first opportunity, told me he loved me, kissed me one more time, then walked out to his truck without turning around. _

_ When he was in the truck with the door closed, I still stood in the doorway, barefoot. I lifted one hand and wiggled just my index finger at him, our silly, maybe childish, combination of “bye” and “I love you,” which we used in situations when we didn’t want to, or couldn’t, be overly affectionate or verbally expressive. _

Chris looked back at me and I saw the surprise register in his eyes; I hadn’t mentioned the wave when we planned out the scene, but he covered it well with a small, sad smile and waved back, the same motion I’d sent him. The truck started to back away and I stepped back to close the front door. When the solid wood was between us, I broke. I spun on my heel and pressed my back against the door before my legs gave out and I slid down to the floor, sobbing. 

I was aware of movement on the other side of the room, and I heard murmurs, but I didn’t pull my hands from my face. I shook as the sobs wracked my body and at some point I dragged my feet in until my heels almost touched my butt and buried my face into my raised knees, covering my head with my forearms. Millie came to me, whining, and pawed at my arms, but I couldn’t bring myself to move even for her. 

Eventually, I heard Chris’s voice, soft and close. “Hey sweet girl,” he murmured, and Millie’s tag jingled, “think it would be okay if I sit here with your momma?” I didn’t even know he’d come back into the house, he had to have gone around back and come in that way - I also had no idea how long I’d been sitting there or what everyone else must be thinking of me - but he was right next to me, coming to sit with me on the floor, his hip brushing mine as he sat. “I’m gonna put my arm around you now, if that’s okay,” he almost whispered. He didn’t move right away, and I nodded, the movement so small I wasn’t even sure if he’d see it. He must have, though, because a second later I felt his arm slide heavily across my shoulders, his hand wrapping gently around the top of my arm, and without meaning to I fell over onto him. 

At some point, I turned into him, my hands fisting his t-shirt and my tears soaking it as I cried. He brought his other hand up to run up and down my spine as he held me. Through it all, he never said a word. The light in the room began to fade with time as the sun started to set, and I realized the lights for the shoot were no longer on. 

“I’m so sorry,” I told him, my voice hoarse and my breath stuttering as I pushed myself away. “I’m so - I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Don’t apologize. Please.”

“Believe it or not, that’s the first time I’ve really done that, let loose like that.”

“Seriously,” he squeezed my arm where his still rested over my shoulders and rested his other hand on his raised knee, “you don’t owe me an explanation.”

“Maybe,” I toyed with the hem of my shorts, “but I feel like I need to say it out loud.”

“Okay,” he nodded, “by all means.”

“I never - I haven’t cried. Not like this. There were small, quiet tears, at the memorial and stuff, but that’s it. There was always some reason to hold it together - I didn’t want to break down in front of the officers who came to tell me, or I  _ had  _ to keep it together, to be strong, for our families, for my kids, for Millie, even,” I looked over to my dog, who had retreated back to the recliner but wasn’t taking her eyes off of us. “That was my role, to be strong, to take care of everyone. I didn’t want to let anyone down. But then, then today I just, I was reliving everything, and that uniform, with his name,” it registered then that he wasn’t wearing the blouse anymore, and I looked around the room until I saw hanging from one of the lighting apparatuses. He’d taken it off before he came to sit with me. “It all just kind of crashed down around me. And once I started, I couldn’t stop.”

The hand that wasn’t holding onto me came up to press his thumb and forefinger into his eyes and he exhaled sharply. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. This was a terrible idea. It was  _ my  _ terrible idea. And I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t be. You were doing your job, and you actually did that really well. It was a great idea for the movie. I just, I hope I didn’t ruin it.”

“No. Absolutely not,” he craned his head around to look me directly in the eyes. “You were great, okay?”

“We only got to do one take.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s gonna work.” I scoffed. “Hey, I’ve been doing this a long time. I can pretty much feel when a take worked and when it didn’t.” I didn’t say anything. “You said I was one of your favorite actors, was that true?” I nodded. “Okay, so I need you to trust me when I say I know what I’m talking about. Will you trust me?” I hesitated, but finally I nodded again. What choice did I have?

I looked around and took in the state of my living and dining rooms, still in disarray from the moved furniture and the equipment that had been brought in. “Where did everyone else go?”

He shrugged a little. “Back to the hotel? Dinner, maybe?”

“Ah shit. You should call Jon and go meet up with them.”

His nose wrinkled and his lips pursed a little. “Nah.” He moved his hand to the middle of my back, between my shoulder blades, “You need to eat something though. Why don’t you and I grab something? Whatever you want, you live here, you know what’s good.”

I scoffed. “I am  _ not  _ fit for public viewing right now.” I thought about the make-up that must be smeared all over my face. “Oh god, Victoria would be mortified at what I must have done to all her hard work.”

I think he must have been proud that he got me to think about something else, because he smiled, just a little. “Hmm, if only you could wash your face and change your clothes - oh wait, your bathroom and closet are right down the hall.”

“Chris.”

“Ma’am.” I realized, somewhere in the back of my mind, that his use of that term was an affectation, something he was picking up just for my benefit. There was no way a New Englander would call someone to whom he was senior, both in age and in status, ‘ma’am,’ but I was a southerner, a teacher, and part of the military community. He was calling me something he thought would make me feel comfortable.

“You really don’t have to do this. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Maybe. But either way, I’m not about to walk out of here and leave you alone and unfed. That’s not how you treat a friend.”

A friend, huh? Is that what we were? I certainly wouldn’t have gone around telling people that I was friends with _ Chris Evans, _ if only because it never crossed my mind that I was anything to him beyond someone contributing to the movie. It hadn’t occurred to me that we would even have contact once the movie was over, let alone that we were building a friendship. I wasn’t opposed to it, exactly, it just took me by surprise.

I tilted my head to the side and looked at him. His eyes were clear and his jaw was set, determined. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I sighed. “Do you like barbecue?”

An hour later, after an outfit change for both of us and more than one go with the eye make-up remover to erase all of Victoria’s handiwork, we sat across the table from one another in the bar area of one of my favorite local restaurants.

“Oh my god,” Chris moaned around his second corn muffin. “Do they put crack in these?”

“Right?” I smirked and pushed the basket with the last muffin across the table to him. I’d been going to the family owned barbecue joint two miles from my house for as long as I’d lived there. I had literally never eaten anything there that wasn’t fantastic, but the free muffins they served at the beginning of the meal were worth the trip on their own.

“Beer’s good too,” he held his pint glass up to me before taking a drink. “Great suggestion.”

“There are a lot of really good breweries around here. That’s one of my favorites.”

I hadn’t forgotten about the breakdown I’d had earlier, and the effects of the emotionally charged afternoon hadn’t disappeared, but I’d managed to put it aside. Between taking some time to literally refresh myself and then physically removing myself from the situation, I had returned to some sense of feeling like myself again. Chris was really easy to be around, and I wanted to be good company for him if he was going to give up his evening for me. Besides that, it was really nice to just act like a normal human. I realized as we parked that it was the first time since my husband died that I’d actually be sitting and eating a meal in a restaurant. I’d gotten take-out a few times, but mostly I cooked, preparing large meals on the weekends and eating leftovers throughout the week. It was easy and kept me from having to think too much. Running on auto-pilot had become my default. I thought in-depth about my work, but I tried not to think about anything else at all.

Chris sat the beer back on the high-top table and opened his mouth like he was going to say something more, then stopped, his hand coming up to cover his mouth and chin and his eyes darting down and to the side. He was listening to something. I tried to listen too.

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it is, I’m telling you. Let’s go over there and you’ll see.”

“No. No, we can’t go over there. I mean, it looks like a … a  _ date _ .”

Both voices were male, young. One sounded younger than the other, but it could have just been that it had a lilting, slightly feminine tone. It also sounded more and more familiar as they continued to talk.

The more familiar voice scoffed. “It’s  _ not  _ a date.”

“You don’t know that. We really shouldn’t bother them.”

The voices came from my left, and both Chris and I avoided looking in that direction. I saw him brace himself, though. Even as the one young man protested, the voices came closer. He looked up at me through his lashes and half-heartedly lifted one corner of his mouth. An apology, it looked like.

“Oh come on. It’s fine,” a pause, then, “Mom?” My head snapped up and toward the sound of the voice. “Mom!”

“Oh my god!” I jumped down off my chair. “Ren!”

“Told you,” Ren sassed at his companion then lunged at me for a hug. The other young man, who I now recognized as a student who had graduated in the spring, only rolled his eyes. “I thought that was you,” Ren told me as he pulled back. His eyes softened and his expression became less animated, more sincere. “It’s good to see you. Here.” Ren and I had been close since he started high school and he knew everything I’d been through over the past several months. He also knew, because he’d made himself one of my kids from day one, how much I’d closed myself off. There had been some days he’d refused to leave rehearsal until he watched me leave as well, because he knew that if he didn’t I’d be likely to stay for several more hours.

“Yeah, well. Gotta eat.” I shrugged and gave him a small smile. 

He grinned at me then grabbed his companion’s hand. “Do you remember Michael?”

“Umm, vaguely.” I put out my right hand. I knew Ren had had a crush back in the spring, and I knew he’d started seeing someone over the summer, but he wouldn’t tell me who, even as he gushed about him. I hadn’t even been sure if the two were the same person. I thought back and was pretty sure that Michael wasn’t out at school. I guessed Ren had been protecting his privacy by withholding his name from even me. “Good to see you again Michael.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“And this is, um,” I looked over at Chris, who had just been watching throughout our exchange, his elbow propped on the table and his chin resting on his hand, “my friend. Chris.” He smiled at me, just briefly, and gave me a very small wink, before putting out his hand for both boys to shake.

Michael was closer to him, and as the two shook hands I discreetly, I hoped, placed one hand on Ren’s shoulder and squeezed. He gave me a sideways glance for a second then turned his attention back to Chris, and almost instantly I saw it register. He looked back at me, eyes wide, and I just shook my head the smallest bit. I saw his hand shaking as he reached for Chris’s, but all he said was, “Nice to meet you.” I definitely had an earful coming from him on Monday.

“Well, it was really good to see you,” Michael’s voice broke Ren’s trance over the man in front of him, “but we’re supposed to be meeting my parents for a movie. We’ll be late if we don’t get going.”

“Absolutely,” I smiled at him. “It was really nice bumping into you.” He just nodded and put his hand back out for Ren to take. “And I’ll see you on Monday,” I promised Ren.

“Yeah you will,” he deadpanned. Yeah. I was definitely going to hear about this.

“It was very nice to meet you both,” Chris told them, and they both waved as they turned for the door. They had only made it a few steps and I had just climbed back onto my chair when they stopped and Ren came back to the table.

“Actually, Mom,” he had lowered his voice and he sounded more serious and thoughtful than he had before. “Are you going to be in early at all on Monday? I was hoping I could come talk.”

My eyebrows knitted together in concern. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just,” he glanced over at Chris and gave him a small, fake smile, “dad stuff.”

“About …” my eyes drifted to Michael.

“No, he doesn’t know about that. My mom does, though. She’s been good.” I smiled and rested my hand on his forearm. “It’s actually about him and my mom.”

I squeezed his arm. “I’ll be there. Drop in whenever.” 

Ren threw his arms around my neck. “Love you, Mom.” Then he ran off to catch up to an impatient-looking Michael.

When I turned back from watching the two young men leave, Chris was just kind of smiling softly at me. I lifted my eyebrows at him in question. “Well, that was,” he paused and chuckled, “unexpected. Here I was preparing to apologize to you for my presence causing a disruption, and turns out it was  _ you  _ they were after.” He grinned.

“Yeah,” I wrinkled my nose and bit the inside of my cheek, “sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. I enjoyed getting to see that. Does it happen often, running into students?”

I shook my head. “I don’t get out much, unless it’s to the grocery store, and most teenagers do everything in their power to avoid going there.”

“Ahh,” he tilted his head back in one big nod. “Good point.”

He stopped talking when the server came to our table carrying a tray loaded with the food we’d ordered. Chris wasn’t rude, by any means, but he kept his head down and let me do the talking until she left. “This looks awesome,” he said once she was gone, staring wide-eyed down at the food in front of him. “And there’s so much food.”

“I told you,” I laughed, pulling the caddy of different sauces across the table to dress my ribs.

“He seemed like a good kid,” he popped a fry into his mouth and reached for the bottle of barbecue sauce I’d just put down, reading the label.

“He is,” I agreed. “Remember how I told you I ‘adopt’ a few kids each year?” He nodded. “Well,  _ he  _ adopted  _ me _ , his freshman year. He really needed someone then. He just, he wasn’t comfortable with who he was.” Chris frowned. “He’s come a long way since then. He’s growing into a pretty good little actor, too.” I beamed. “I’m really fortunate to get to watch it all as it happens.”

Chris pushed his plate away just a little and crossed his forearms on the table. “Well, I mean, he seems pretty fortunate too. It seems like you’re a pretty special part of his life.”

“I don’t know about that,” I shrugged. “I was just there at the right time.” He scoffed as he pressed the top bun onto his sandwich. “I’m never going to be the best teacher in the world. And, honestly, I have no business running any school’s theatre department. But I give everything I can, and there is  _ no one  _ who will love my kids or fight for them as hard as I do.” The look he gave me made me squirm. It was almost, I don’t know, too soft. I dropped my eyes to my plate, but when I looked back up he was still looking at me. “Well,” I let out a breath, chuckled a little, “I’m so ready for this. Just a warning, you may wanna keep your eyes on your own plate, this isn’t gonna be pretty.” He quirked one eyebrow up at me in question. “I haven’t had ribs in, I don’t know, a year, maybe? More? There will be nothing ladylike about what’s about to happen here.” 

He only laughed and picked up his beer, tipping the glass at me in salute.

***

_ 1 ½ weeks later (late September, Year 1) _

My phone rang just as the last of the kids was leaving rehearsal, and the last name I expected to see on the screen was Chris’s. He’d texted me a couple times, and by that point we had exchanged dms regularly enough for it to be considered ‘common,’ but he’d never called me. 

“Um, hello?”

“Hey! How are you?”

“I’m. Fine.” I drew the word out, unsure what kind of response I should reasonably have.

“I’m not interrupting you, am I? Rehearsal ended at 3:30, right?” I didn’t remember telling him that, but I must have, at some point. I looked at my watch. It was 3:45.

“Yeah, it did.” One of my girls, a junior with her first leading role, popped her head back in the door that led to the lobby, but when she saw me on the phone she just waved her hand like whatever had brought her back could wait and left again.

“Awesome. Well, I just wanted to tell you, I saw the scene today.”

“The … scene?”

“Yeah!” He sounded excited. “The scene.  _ Our  _ scene. It hasn’t been edited or anything, but I saw the rough cut. Several of us did, actually.” My mind started to picture him, phone pressed to his ear with one hand and the other hand cutting wildly through the air. “Favreau brought it in at the end of today’s reshoots and showed it to me and the crew and some of the extras.”

“Oh.” It was all I could say. The thought of people watching that terrified me, honestly. “Was it, is it okay?”

“It’s awesome.”

I sighed, and though he of course couldn’t see it, I rolled my eyes. 

“Seriously,” he pressed, “it’s really, really good. You’re amazing in it.”

“Okay.” I tried not to sound as sarcastic as I felt.

“No, really.” His voice got quiet. “People cried. And not just me,” he laughed at his own expense a little bit. “The Air Force guys, the extras, they cried.”

My heart squeezed so that it literally hurt. “Well, I’m sure that was you. You’re amazing at what you do.”

“No. That was you. One of the guys told me that while he was watching, you faded away and he saw his wife.”

My breath caught, and I tried not to let him hear the way it stuttered out. “I …” I didn’t know what I was going to say.

“That’s exactly what we’re going for here, right? That’s what we want. You made him see his own situation, but from the other side, and you made him feel something. Imagine how that’s going to touch the rest of America.”

I ran my free hand, the one that wasn’t holding the phone, over my face and through my hair. “I … thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Hey. Don’t thank me. I didn’t do anything, I’m just the messenger.”

That was far from true and we both knew it, but I wasn’t going to argue with him.

“Well, thanks for  _ messeng-ing _ .” He laughed and the sound made me smile.

“Any time. So, how’s your week? Anything exciting in the world of high school English and theatre?” 

***

_ 1 week later (early October, Year 1) _

The second time he called took me almost as much by surprise as the first. That time he called a little later, and I was walking Millie. Once the new school year had started I’d changed up my arrangement with her walker a bit. We kept our routine from the spring on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays her class schedule dictated that she came in the mornings, which meant I gave Millie her afternoon walk. It let me sleep a little later on those days, and it also meant that I was forced to leave school shortly after rehearsal, which was definitely healthier than what I had been doing, even if it was only twice a week. 

“Hi Chris. Everything okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, everything’s great.”

“Okay, what’s up?” I wasn’t trying to be short with him, and I certainly didn’t mind that he called, I just figured there had to be an actual reason.

“Um,” I thought I could hear a small frown in his voice, if that was possible. “Nothing major, really. I was just going to let you know that we finished all the reshoots yesterday. We are officially in post-production.”

“Oh,” Jon had actually called me the previous day to tell me that, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to hear his voice drop again. “That’s awesome. It’s really exciting to have a concrete measurement of progress.”

“Yeah, from the perspective of an actor who’s also a bit of a control-freak it’s a little nerve-wracking,” he laughed. “It’s like I’ve had all my power stripped away.” 

I laughed then too. “Oh. Well. Then I’m sorry for your loss, I guess.”

“Eh, occupational hazard. So,” he dragged the word out, “speaking of, how are rehearsals going?”

***

_ 1 week later (mid-October, Year 1) _

By the third time, seeing his name pop up on my phone as it rang didn’t confuse me. It did make my stomach flip a little, but I ignored that. I smiled when I answered, and made sure he could hear, after the last two times, the pleasantness in my voice.

“Hey Chris.”

“Hey back.” He sounded a little surprised.

“How are you?”

“I’m … good. Well,” he hesitated, “actually, I’m starting to feel a little paranoid, like I’m being a little stalkerish.”

“O-Kay?”

“Well, I called because I finally finished going through your private Twitter, and I was going to comment on something I saw from like, last July, I think.” I giggled, and the sound was almost foreign to my own ears. “But then, on top of that, I just now realized that I’ve called you, what, three times in a row now? And you’ve never called me. Am I actually stalking you?” His tone, the way his voice rose and he almost squeaked out the word ‘actually,’ said it was definitely a joke, but there was something else underneath.

I laughed full-out then. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t - I don’t really call people. I tend to stick to texting, dms, e-mail if it’s work related. But I really don’t make phone calls unless I have to.”

He sighed. “Millennials.” I could practically see him shaking his head, a wannabe disappointed expression on his face, quickly being overtaken by a grin.

“Uh, you know you’re only four years older than me, right?”

“A technicality.”

“Okay Grandpa, well, what did you see on the interwebs that you wanted to talk to me about?”

He barked out a laugh and it took him a few seconds to respond. “Okay, that was good.” I grinned behind the hand that wasn’t holding the phone. “Anyway, a while back you posted a couple short videos of a young lady singing ‘Worse Things I Could Do,’ is that, is she one of yours?”

My heart swelled with pride. “She is. She graduated a couple years ago; we did ‘Grease’ her senior year.” 

“She’s …”

“Incredible, right?”

“She’s fuckin’ amazing.”

“I cry like, every time she opens her mouth.” She’d gone to school close by and had stayed one of my kids since she graduated. I’d actually just gone to see her perform at a college showcase the weekend after shooting the scene with Chris.

“Yeah, I can see why.” It got quiet for a few seconds. “Well, that’s all I really had. I guess I could’ve dm’ed you. Sorry, I didn’t realize you weren’t a phone person.”

“No no, it’s not that. I don’t mind talking on the phone. It’s just, I don’t like  _ making  _ phone calls.” I stopped, not sure how much more I wanted to say about it, and kind of hoping he would pick it up from there. But he didn’t, and after several seconds I decided to go forward. I’d trusted him so far and it hadn’t yet backfired. “It stresses me out. To call someone. I just have this feeling, this fear, I guess, that I’m going to be bothering, or, ya know, inconveniencing them. So I text, or whatever else. Leave the ball in their court so they can deal with me on their own time. It’s an anxiety thing, the not calling. So is the rambling. Sorry.”

“Oh.” A beat of silence. “Well, hey, don’t apologize. And, just so you know, you can feel free to call me any time you want. You know, if you need to tell me something, or if you just wanna talk to another adult human being. Consider this an open invitation.”

“Well, thank you. I appreciate that.”

“That doesn’t help, does it?”

I opened my mouth to say something but closed it again on a harsh exhale. Finally, I managed, “It’s really sweet. And it means a lot that you said it.”

“Riiight.”

“But hey, since you did the calling, and we’re already on the phone, how’ve you been? How’s being back in Boston? That’s gotta be a huge change from New Mexico the last few months, right?”

***

_ 5 days later (mid-October, Year 1) _

“Hey mister.”

“Ma’am.”

“I’m really sorry, but I can’t really talk right now. I’m still at rehearsal. Our first round of competition is next weekend and we’re having extended rehearsals this week and next week. Was there anything in particular you needed, before I have to go?”

“Um, yeah, actually. I’m really sorry to interrupt, but your competition was kind of why I called. Sort of.”

“Oh. What about it?”

“Well, I’ve been stalking again,” I laughed, looking up at my kids trickling back in from their break, “and I’ve been seeing stuff about the competition on your teacher-Twitter. So, I’m on my way to D.C. right now to do some sit-downs with a few Senators over the next couple days. I was thinking, what if I come down when I’m done there?”

“Come down?”

“Yeah. To Virginia.”

“Uhhhh, I really don’t mean this the way it’s going to sound, but … why?”

He chuckled, a couple breaths into the phone’s receiver, “Right, my bad. Buried the lede. I thought I could watch your rehearsal on Friday, maybe talk with you guys about the performance, give the kids some pointers after? If you think that would be helpful at all. And then, if you don’t have anything going on, maybe we could hang out some over the weekend. You could take me to one of the breweries you like.”

Judging from the way my kids had all stopped their conversations on stage to stare at me, I probably looked downright comical. I was aware that my mouth had fallen open, and I could feel the tension where my brows had drawn tightly together.

“Um. I. Wow. That’s a really,  _ incredibly  _ kind offer. I mean, yeah, it would definitely be helpful. I can’t imagine that any of the other schools have actual, professional, like,  _ movie-star-and-also-been-on-Broadway _ actors coaching them.” 

His laugh calmed me just a little, until he spoke again. “And the other stuff? Are you, would you wanna do anything over the weekend? I’m not trying to put you on the spot, I’m just trying to plan travel.”

Had it been literally anyone else in the world, my reaction would have been to practically yell, ‘I’m not ready to date!’ But I was 117% sure that  _ Chris. Evans.  _ was most definitely not trying to date me. So the alternative was that he really was just the nicest person there was. And quite possibly one of the best friends on the planet.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty open.”

***

_ 3 days later (mid-late October, Year 1) _

“You know that you just completely made their collective lives, right?” I looked over my shoulder at Chris where he was hanging folding chairs on a rack as I brought them to him. 

“Eh,” he propped one arm on the chair rack and leaned his weight against it, “I didn’t do that much.”

I stopped where I was, halfway to the last two chairs, and turned back to face him. “If you really think that, you’re delusional.”

He laughed. “Well,” he drawled, still smiling.

“No, I mean it.” I continued on to grab the chairs and took them to him, then walked to the edge of the stage and pushed myself up to sit on it. He followed me, his hand right next to mine between our hips. “They were pumped when we came in and Brody was already here, which  _ I  _ didn’t even know was happening. But then you walked in five minutes later and I thought a couple of them were actually going to pass out.”

I wasn’t even really exaggerating. A couple of the girls had practically cried when he went to shake their hands, and Ren had made it abundantly clear to everyone else that he’d already met Chris once, definitely implying that the meeting had consisted of more than a ‘hello’ and a brief handshake.

He chuckled. “He seems like a good kid. What’s his story?”

I knew he was trying to change the subject off himself; I’d learned very well in the short time I’d known him that he didn’t usually respond well to being praised. It almost always resulted in a subject change or a sarcastic joke. Luckily for him, this time he’d found a subject I was more than happy to talk about. Brody had been my very first adopted kid, and I didn’t miss a chance to gush over him.

“He’s pretty fantastic,” I smiled. “He graduated a couple years ago. When he was here, he was … ‘Mr. High School.’ Wonderful athlete, but also really talented in theatre and music. So smart. Class president. He was the cliche. But also genuinely beloved. I honestly couldn’t tell you a single person who wasn’t crazy about him. Basically,” I leaned toward him until my shoulder bumped his, then pulled back right away, “he’s you, just 20 years younger.”

“Ohhh,” he drew out the syllable and smirked, one eyebrow high on his forehead, “so he’s out in the parking lot getting high right now, then?”

I gasped and my jaw dropped, and without thinking, I lifted my hand from the edge of the stage between us and slapped his leg with the back of it. “I said 20 years younger, not 20 years  _ ago _ . He’s a 20-year-old version of who you are now. Smart, funny, talented, and so incredibly kind to absolutely everyone.”

“Okay. But where’s the part that’s like me?”

“Stop.” I rolled my eyes. “You know people love you. And it’s well deserved.” 

He was quiet as he looked back at me, just long enough that it almost made me squirm. “So how’d he end up one of yours? He doesn’t fit your typical type, from what you’ve told me about most of your kids.”

“He really doesn’t,” I shook my head slowly, my smile soft. Most of my kids latched onto me because I provided something, some warmth or nurturing or understanding, that they weren’t getting anywhere else. That was far from the case with Brody. “I don’t fully know, honestly. I knew his older sister. My first year here she was a senior and she did theatre. The next year was his junior year and he was in my English class. He joined theatre that year, too. I don’t know why he let me mom him the way he did. Lord knows he didn’t need me. He has perfect parents. I fed him a lot, that probably helped.” We both laughed. “But really, I don’t know what the connection was. He just has a really great heart, I think, and he enjoys connecting with other people.”

Chris dropped his head a little and looked up at me through his lashes. “Or maybe, he recognizes another great heart when he meets one.” 

My cheeks burned and I averted my eyes from his. I wasn’t great with compliments, either. I pushed myself off the stage and headed for the table in the middle of the floor where we’d sat to watch the kids rehearse. My bag was still under the table, so I grabbed it and started shoving in the script, planning binder, notes, and pens that we’d left scattered across the table. “Well, I’m just glad we get to benefit from it. He’s taken at least one theatre-related class every semester at UVA, and he’s done a couple of productions there. He comes back occasionally and shares things he’s learned with my kids, like he did today, and it always has a really positive impact. But,” I slid my bag over my shoulder and turned back to face him on the stage, but he was standing only a couple feet away. I cleared my throat, a little startled. “But nothing will ever compare to the day they got acting tips from  _ Captain America _ .” I grinned as he shoved his hands in his pockets and dropped his chin to his chest, nodding slowly.

“Glad to be of service, ma’am,” he said when he looked back up at me, and lifted his right hand in the ‘Cap salute.’

I let out a girlish squeal and bounced on my toes. “Okay, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of not like, fanning-out so far, but that was pretty cool.”

He laughed behind me as I turned to lead him out of the building. “Yeah, yeah. So, what’s next on the agenda? One of your kids mentioned a festival, I think?”

“Yeah, Seafood Fest. It’s nothing major, a lot of craft booths and a little carnival, mostly, and a lot of really good local seafood. And some performances. Our marching band plays in,” I looked down at my watch, “about 20 minutes, actually.”

He jogged a couple steps to pass me and pushed open the door that led to the lobby. “Wanna go? Can we make it in 20 minutes?”

I laughed and stopped at the bank of glass doors leading to the parking lot, which was full and still had a line of cars out to and well down the road. “Yeah, I think we can make it.”

“Wow.” He stopped next to me and looked at the cars. 

“Remember how I keep telling you this is a  _ really small town _ ?” I looked at him and he just nodded. “Well, there’s the Seafood Fest.” I pointed to our right, just past the end of the school parking lot to ‘The Woods,’ a wooded area barely larger than the school itself. There was a large, arching sign at the head of the trail that led into the area, announcing your arrival at the festival, and the trees were all strung with white lights that created an effect that was more ‘fairy tale’ than ‘Christmas.’ It was actually quite lovely.

“Oh wow.” The desired effect had clearly been achieved on him.

“We can just go drop my stuff off at my car and head over, if that works for you. And I think my school hoodie is still in there from where I took it home to wash and keep forgetting to bring it back in. It’s a large,” he looked down at me a little funny, “I won it in a drawing at our back-to-school lunch a couple years ago. Anyway, might help you blend in if you want to throw it on.”

Twenty minutes later, I stood with the rest of the crowd, engrossed in the performance in front of me. I loved watching my school’s marching band on the field during football games, but it was definitely easier to just enjoy the music when they performed standing still, like they did at the festival. I’d been a band geek myself in high school, so I probably enjoyed it more than others might, but I couldn’t help but think they were objectively good, and the drum majors’ exuberance and energy made them a joy to watch.

I felt a hand on the small of my back, and my first thought was that someone bumped me as they walked by. When the hand stayed longer than a second, my next thought was that it was someone I knew, a co-worker, maybe, or one of my girls who had graduated and was back in town for the festival, alerting me to their presence. But then I felt warm breath wisp across the shell of my ear, just barely, and I heard Chris’s voice. “They’re really good.”

“Right?” I smiled up at him and he just smiled back. He stepped closer, bringing his bicep into contact with the back of my shoulder, to let someone pass. I waited for him to step back, but when he didn’t, even after the man and his small child had gone through, and just moved his eyes back to the band, I did the same. 

By the time the band had finished its marching show and moved on to playing pep band standards, I was ready to eat. I looked up at Chris, who was still watching the band, his head bobbing in time to the music and a small smile on his face, “Food?”

“Sure!” He grinned down at me and pulled his hand from my back, moving his arm so that it was in front of him, crooked at the elbow. “Lead the way, ma’am.” I rolled my eyes at him, but I couldn’t stop my smile as I hooked my hand over his forearm. 

The fourth former student had just walked away from our table when I looked over to see that Chris had pushed away the huge sampler we were sharing from the festival’s most popular vendor and was just leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. His smirk was far from angry, though. Amused, if anything. He nodded at the tray covered in small paper baskets. “That’s your half.”

“I’m so sorry,” I told him as I reached for a shrimp. “Remember when we were at dinner and I told you I didn’t really run into my students outside school?” He nodded. “This is the exception.” He laughed and his head fell back, his hand coming to his chest. Once he stopped laughing I went on, “This is pretty much the entire town. Right here. Including anyone who has graduated high school in the last few years and goes to college anywhere in the state or works in the area. It’s inevitable that I’m going to run into some kids.” I nudged the food tray back toward him. There was no chance that I was going to eat all of what he’d left for me.

He looked at the tray for a few seconds then slowly sat back up to the table, pulling his chair a couple inches closer to me as he did. “Don’t apologize.” He picked at a crab cake with a fork. “It’s kinda fun, actually.” I narrowed my eyes at him as he popped the food into his mouth and chewed. “I mean,” he swallowed, “I mean, here I am, hiding behind a hat and a beard and your sweatshirt, then we get in here and  _ you’re  _ the celebrity.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m  _ not  _ a celebrity.”

“Sure you are. They love you. It says a lot about you. Maybe I’d have actually spent more time in class when I was in school if I’d had a teacher like you.” His eyes were soft, not teasing, when he smiled at me, and my cheeks burned.

We spent the next day sort of being tourists in my town. I’d managed to convince him that it didn’t make sense for him to get a hotel for the weekend, even though he’d said he didn’t mind staying in the one they’d used when they were in town filming. The money wasn’t an issue for him, of course, the way it had been when mine or my husband’s family members would sometimes visit, but staying in my guest room, empty since Victoria had moved out a couple weeks earlier to get an apartment with some friends, still just seemed like the better option. If nothing else, he wasn’t going to be ‘spotted’ walking from my driveway to my front door the way he might in a hotel lobby. I knew he was worried about imposing, but honestly, he was the most low-maintenance houseguest I’d ever had. 

I cooked breakfast for myself most days, so it was no trouble to add another person into the mix. It was nice, actually, cooking for him, comforting even, a reminder of less confusing times. After breakfast we’d taken Millie to my favorite trail in the area. The light-ish five-mile hike was my typical work-out on Saturday mornings, and Chris said he’d be more than happy to tag along. It had been nice, having someone else to walk with. He made me laugh, and it was kind of cool to have a reason to look at a place I knew so well through someone else’s fresh eyes. At one point he insisted on using my phone to take pictures of Millie and me on one of the bridges that crossed the lake the trail wound around and over. He said my Twitter had a lot of pictures of just her and I needed some of the both of us.

After our hike we’d gone back to my house to clean up and have lunch, then I’d taken him to a couple local museums and the beach. It was well-past swimming season, but it was a really nice day for a walk, and the view was gorgeous. Finally, we’d ended up at a brewery I really liked that was only five minutes from my house, eating food truck food and laughing as other patrons, most of whom had already had significantly more to drink than we had, sang karaoke. Chris was weighing his desire to be discreet with the one to get up and sing and I was still nursing my first beer when a middle-aged woman approached our table.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt your date -”

I opened my mouth to correct her, but he spoke before I could. “You’re absolutely fine.” He smiled. “What can we do for you?”

She smiled over at me for a second then quickly turned her attention back to him. “My son, he’s 13, he’s outside playing cornhole with his friend. He’s a huge, huge fan. Do you think, well, would it be okay if I bring him in and get a picture?”

Chris looked over at me and I smiled and shrugged. I was fine with whatever he wanted to do. “Actually,” he smiled back up at the woman and pushed his chair back from the table, “why don’t I go to him?” He looked down at me once he was standing and nodded for me to come along.

When we got out back to the patio area, the young man had been exactly as excited as you would expect him to be. His mom had taken a handful of pictures in various poses with her phone (my favorite had been when Chris had held his arms up and flexed his biceps, each boy hanging off one arm), then the young man had pulled out his own phone, covered in a ‘Captain America’ case. He was so proud to show it off. It took us a few minutes, but we finally tracked down a Sharpie, even if I had to practically beg the karaoke organizer to let me borrow it for two minutes. The young man’s face glowed as he watched Chris sign his phone case, and I managed to get a picture of that. I figured Chris would like to have that one.

We left shortly after that, Chris closing out the tab he’d insisted on covering (“You only had one beer, I think I got it.”). At a stoplight, I looked over at him, his head swaying and his knuckles rapping the window in time to the classic rock coming from the car’s speakers. “You were really good back there with those kids.” I told him.

He grinned over at me. “I like meeting kids. There’s something pure about it. It makes me feel good about what I do.”

“Yeah,” I shook my head, “it’s not just kids, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean -” I laughed a little under my breath, “I’m convinced every person who meets you walks away a little bit in love with you.”

It was quiet for longer than I expected, and once I looked over at him out of the corner of my eye to find him studying me in the light from the street lamps.

“I don’t know about that,” he finally said.

As soon as we got into the house, I turned on the television so we could watch the second half of a football game between my alma mater and an in-conference rival. When the buzzer rang to signal the end of the third quarter, I went to the fridge to get each of us one last beer. “Hey,” he started, a little hesitantly, when I handed him his beer and curled back into the end of the couch opposite him, “back there, when that woman called you my date, I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable.”

“It’s fine.” I shrugged and looked down into my beer. 

“I know we could have corrected her,” he went on, “but it just seemed like it would be easier to see what she wanted and move on. The thing is,” he shook his head, “I’m used to that sort of thing. I haven’t actually dated half the people I’m rumored to have been with. I guess I just …  _ forgot  _ that it wasn’t a normal thing for you. I should have been more considerate.”

“It really is okay."

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I stretched out one leg and nudged him with my foot. The second I did it I regretted it. I had no idea what had come over me and for a second I could barely breathe. I’d clearly had one too many beers. He looked surprised for a second, then just swatted at my foot with a pillow. I brought my leg back and tucked it under me then turned my attention fully back to the television. The refs were having what appeared to be an in-depth discussion about ball placement, but I focused on it as intently as if it had been a last-second scoring drive.

For the next several minutes, long enough for my team to earn two first downs then turn over the ball on downs, we watched in relative silence, the only sounds my groans of frustration. When the game went to commercial, he spoke up again.

“Hey, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Um, okay.”

“And if it’s too personal, feel free to tell me to fuck off and mind my own business.”

I turned just my head to find him leaning against the arm of the couch and watching me closely, holding his beer bottle in one hand and picking at the label with the other. “Go ahead.”

“ _ Have  _ you dated at all? Since … your husband?”

I dropped my eyes and shook my head. “I don’t know what’s a ‘normal’ or ‘appropriate’ amount of time to wait after you lose your spouse, I just know that I’m not there yet.” 

“It’s been … nine, 10 months?” I looked up at him and nodded, and he just nodded back.

“Honestly, even if I was ready, I don’t even know where I’d begin.” He tilted his head to one side and looked at me questioningly. “Like … online dating. I don’t have anything against the concept. And I know people who’ve done it and found people who make them incredibly happy. But I don’t think it would work for me. I feel like I need … a friend. Someone I already know and have a bond or a connection with. I know this sounds  _ super  _ corny, but there’s something almost, I don’t know,  _ sacred  _ to me about having that bond, that person you know and trust and already care about, and then taking it farther, deepening that connection. So I guess, if and when I do date again, I’d want it to happen that way. With a friend. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” he sat his beer down on the end table and looked me in the eyes, “I do.”

“I’m sorry, I sound so stupid and, and romantic.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid at all.”

“But I mean,” I forced a laugh, “my only guy friends are either gay, or not  _ really _ my friends at all, just the husbands of my friends. And you,” I gestured toward him with one hand as I reached for my beer with the other. I lifted one shoulder in what was meant to be a careless shrug, “So yeah. I don’t think I’ll be dating any time soon.”

I waited for him to respond, but after a few seconds all I’d gotten from him was a quick eyebrow jerk and a small nod, so I turned back to the television just in time to see a defender from my team crossing the 50-yard-line with the ball he’d just picked off. “Oh!” I jumped off the couch. “Yes!  _ Yes! _ ” I fell back onto the couch right after the defender crossed into the endzone. “Oh thank god.” The touchdown was enough to make it a two-possession game and, with just under a minute left to play, clinched the win. The extra point would just be icing on the cake. I rolled my head toward Chris where it rested on the cushion behind me and grinned. “That’s game.”   


He smiled back. “You get animated, huh?”

I grinned back a little bigger. “Oh, you should see me during Kentucky basketball.” He didn’t say anything, but kept his eyes on me until I turned mine back to the game for the point-after kick.

Right after the kick was called good, I felt the couch shift and looked over to see him pushing himself up. “I, uh, I think I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Oh. Okay.” I peeked at my watch; it wasn’t late, really.

He shrugged. I’d been caught. “I’ve got an early-ish flight, and I promised I’d have dinner with the family when I get home, so I should probably get some rest.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll make breakfast in the morning before I take you to the airport, help, ya know, get you off to a good start.”

“If you want. You don’t have to, though. You don’t even have to drive me. I can -”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I cut him off. “Of course I’m driving you. And I’m more than happy to cook. Feeding people is my love language.” I smirked up at him, hoping he’d realize I was being silly.

“Okay,” he chuckled a little and brought his hand up to the back of my arm and squeezed. “‘Night.”

“Hey,” I lifted my hand to his shoulder before he had a chance to move away. “Thank you.” He looked down at me like he was confused. “I’ve had a really, really good weekend. So thank you.” He let out a sigh then wrapped both arms around my back in a gentle hug. I didn’t even think before wrapping my own arms around his neck.

“I had a good weekend too. A great weekend.” He pulled back and rubbed a thumb over my spine. “G’night.”

“Night.”


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And maybe, just maybe, someday we could be more.

_ 1 Week Later (end of October, Year 1) _

The kids were still buzzing as the bus pulled out of the restaurant parking lot where we’d stopped for dinner. To be honest, so was I. It had been a long, exhausting day, competition days always were, but it had also been incredibly fulfilling. Again, they always were. I did my best to shush them without raising my voice, but it just wasn’t going to happen. Finally I gave in to my baser instincts. Perched on my knees in one of the bus seats three or four rows back and facing backward toward the kids, I bellowed. “Hey!” It instantly got quiet and their heads snapped up. “Hi,” I said in a much quieter voice, smiling and chipper. I held my phone up over my head. “We’ve got a phone call to make.” I grinned and most of the kids smiled and a few even bounced in their seats, several moving forward to share seats with others who were closer to me. 

One girl, a freshman who wasn’t in the cast but who had come along because she hoped to be a part of the program in the future, was clearly confused and kept talking, asking questions about what was going on. Finally, Ren snapped at her. “She’s calling Chris Evans. Now be quiet!” I gave him a look that let him I didn’t approve of his attitude toward the younger girl, but didn’t say anything, instead looking down at my phone to find Chris’s number in my contacts, switching the phone to speaker as soon as it started to ring. I put one finger to my lips in a reminder to the kids to be quiet.

“Well well,” he answered after the second ring, “_ you _ calling _ me _? Don’t I feel special.”

My cheeks flushed instantly and a couple of the older kids looked at me with wide eyes and wider grins. I only rolled my own eyes back at them.

“Hey, I’m capable of making phone calls.”

“Mm-hmm, well,_ now _I believe that. Soo,” he drawled, “how’s your day?” His voice rose on the last word.

“Oh,” I grinned down at the kids in the seat right behind me, “it’s fine.”

“Fine?” The word was a little clipped.

“Mm-hmm,” I grinned wider and had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing.

“Well?” We could hear the impatience in his voice and I saw one girl clamp her hand over another’s mouth when she started to laugh.

“Well?” I repeated, playing dumb.

“Well, how did our kids do?” He was almost yelling, and I watched Ren’s best friend look at him and mouth ‘our kids’ with such a soft expression she looked like she might cry.

“Oh.” I looked around the bus at my co-conspirators and smirked. “That.” I paused again, just because. Finally, “First place!” I squealed.

“Hell yeah!” he responded on the other end of the line, and the kids did their best to stay quiet, but all of them giggled at least a little bit.

“And I got a best actor award!” Ren was done being quiet.

“Is that Ren?” Chris’s voice had grown even more excited.

“Yeah,” I laughed toward the phone.

“Fuckin’ right, he did.” The kids lost it at that, all of them abandoning any pretense of being quiet and laughing openly. “Oh shit,” his voice dropped, “am I on speakerphone?”

I continued to laugh quietly as I switched the phone back off speaker and turned around to sit in my seat, waving back at my kids to let them know I would be on the phone a few minutes longer. “You were,” I told him. “I’m sorry, I thought it would be fun for them to hear your reaction when I told you. I probably shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that.”

“No, it’s okay. It was cute. I just feel bad about the language.”

“Pssht, they’ve heard worse.”

“Surely not from you,” he faked disbelief. 

“On occasion,” I admitted. “Not that I’m proud of it, but sometimes things slip. And sometimes, I just really have to make a point. I’m a very emotional person, you know.”

“I do know.”

I laughed. “Okay, I don’t know how long I can reasonably expect them to stay quiet. I should probably go. I just wanted to share the good news.”

“Alright. Hey, call me when you get home. If you want.”

My cheeks burned again, and though no one could see me, I dropped my face to look into my lap. “Okay. I probably will.”

I’d just finished tucking my phone back into my bag when Ren slid into the seat next to me. 

“He sounded happy to hear from you,” he said, feigning non-chalance. 

“Don’t,” I looked at him sideways. “He just wanted to know how you guys did. He was invested.”

“Riiight,” he nodded. “Invested in us, or …”

“That’s not what this is,” I turned my head to look him in the eyes. “He’s a great friend, and after last week I think he even sees himself as a little bit of a mentor to you guys. That’s it. I’m - He’s definitely not interested in me in any other way. And even if he was … massive celebrity crush aside, I’m still not ready to date.” I shrugged, “I’m still a mess, Ren.” He gave me a small smile then dropped his cheek to my shoulder and wrapped both his arms around the one of mine closest to him, hugging it for a second before going back to his own seat. 

***

_ 2 weeks later (mid-November, Year 1) _

“What do you have going on January 20th?” I’d been looking at the text for several seconds. It was so random and out of the blue that I didn’t really know how to respond.

Finally, I typed back, “Well, seeing as that’s over two months away, not a clue.” 

The phone rang shortly after I sent the text, as I was letting Millie out to use the restroom for the last time of the night. “Hello?”

“You wanna come to D.C. with me?”

“D.C?”

“Yeah, for the inauguration.”

“Oh!” The date hadn’t even registered in my mind when he’d first texted me. When it came to presidential politics, I was still just on a sort of high from the knowledge that just a few short months later we’d have a new president. The election results had actually restored a little bit of my faith in humanity. “I mean, that would be fantastic, but -”

“No buts. I’ve already got two tickets to the inauguration itself. I can try to get us tickets to one of the balls if you want, but I’m not really worried about that part. I got a room, a two-bedroom suite, for the night before and the night of.” He was clearly excited and talking very quickly. It was quite cute. “I didn’t want to be presumptuous, and if you want your own room I can try to get another one, but I know they’re in really short supply already. I figured the two bedrooms wouldn’t be all that different from me staying in your guest room, and I didn’t want to get two separate rooms in case you said no. Do you think you can get off work?”

“Yeah,” I laughed a little, more out of surprise than anything else, “I haven’t used any personal days this year.”

“Okay. Well, then just decide if you want to go or not. It’s totally up to you, but I’d love to have you there with me.”

“Sounds amazing.” I let Millie back in and leaned back against the closed back door, tucking my chin into my chest and pressing the phone to my ear.

“Yeah? You don’t have to give me a concrete answer right now.”

“No, I’m positive. Let’s do it.”

***

_ 1 ½ weeks later (Thanksgiving, Year 1) _

I’d decided to stay in Virginia rather than going back to Kentucky for Thanksgiving. My break from school just wasn’t long enough to warrant the 10-hour drive, and I didn’t want to brave the airport on the busiest travel weekend of the year. My friend Chelsea, a former co-worker, and her husband had invited me to spend the holiday with their family - the two of them, their 18-month-old, and Chelsea’s parents. 

I was on the couch with Baby Beau when my phone rang with a Skype call. “Happy Thanksgiving!” I answered, then laughed immediately when I was met with a furry tan and white face and chest, a turkey headband on his scruffy head.

Chris lowered Dodger back to all fours and looked over him at me, grinning. “Happy turkey day!”

“You’re a goofball,” I told him.

“And you’re …” he put on an exaggerated shocked face, “not. Cooking.”

“Nope.” I shook my head at him and turned the phone toward the television. “Parade now, football later. Way too much food somewhere in between. That’s my day.”

“I can’t believe it. Thanksgiving day and miss ‘my love language is cooking’ is on the couch.”

“Okay, first of all,” I huffed and narrowed my eyes at him, “your memory is ridiculous. Don’t use my own words against me. And second of all,” I tilted my head back over the back of the couch and called out loudly, “they won’t let me help.”

AJ, Chelsea’s husband, called back, “You’re the toddler whisperer. Trust me, you’re helping.”

Chris laughed. “The toddler whisperer?”

“Yeah. Meet Baby Beau.” I directed the phone down to where Beau’s face was buried in my shoulder, his little hands fisted around my sweater and his knees tucked up into my stomach while my arm hooked under his diapered bottom to support his weight. “He sleeps like a rock, until you try to put him down, apparently.” I directed the phone back to my own face and Chris’s soft smile and gentle eyes made me feel a little warm.

“He’s a cutie.”

“Yeah, Chelsea and AJ did good. Speaking of, shouldn’t you have some kiddos running around there somewhere?”

“Soon,” he grinned. “They went to my sister’s in-laws’ first, then they’re coming to my mom’s. This house is going to be pure chaos within the hour.”

I laughed. “And you love it.”

“And I. Love it. Hey,” he said when he’d stopped laughing. “I’m glad you’re with your friends. If you get bored or lonely later, even later this weekend, call me. Promise?”

I nodded. “I promise.”

_ *** _

_ 1 ½ weeks later (early December, Year 1) _

I looked around me at the disaster area my kids had turned our host classroom into. It always stressed me out the way they had the same effect as a tornado when we went into a school for competition and were assigned a room to use for the day. They were always great about cleaning up after themselves afterward, but that didn’t prevent the anxiety I felt when I saw clothes, make-up, backpacks, snacks, handheld gaming devices, and whatever else they brought with them strewn about the room, littering the floor and desks. It didn’t help that I hadn’t slept the night before. I was always nervous before competitions, but this one was the state championship, and I felt really good about my kids’ chances, which actually served to make me even more nervous than usual. It seems counterintuitive, but knowing they _ could _win made me more anxious about the prospect that they wouldn’t. And that year, we had a great show, my kids were some of the most talented I’d ever worked with, and, of course, we had our secret weapons, our two guest mentors.

Brody looked down at me and laughed. “I think this is the worst I’ve ever seen you.”

I pushed off the desk I’d been leaning on and shoved my hands into my hair. “Thank you. That’s helpful.” He laughed again.

The high school that hosted the state championship was in Charlottesville, less than 20 minutes from the University of Virginia campus. Brody had insisted there was no way he was going to miss it after we’d qualified for State just before Thanksgiving. Chris, on the other hand, had more of a commute. A couple days after Thanksgiving he’d called and said he wanted to be there. He hadn’t worked, aside from his political ventures for his website, since wrapping in New Mexico and, according to him, he loved his family and there was nowhere he’d rather be than Boston, but he also didn’t hate stepping away for a few days here and there. I’d given a half-hearted, “you really don’t have to do that” speech, but the truth was I knew the kids would be over the moon to have him there, and I wasn’t opposed to the idea myself. The house was quieter without Victoria living there, and while I’d spent Thanksgiving day with Chelsea and her family, the holidays in general were very family-oriented, and I didn’t have one of those, really. At least, not within arms’ reach. Selfishly, I was happy to have his company.

Chris watched me with a grin, then looked over at Brody. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I think she’s cool, calm, and collected.” Brody laughed.

I looked down at my watch then back up at Chris. “Okay, time for you to go.”

“Oh come on,” he laughed, “I was _ joking _.”

I just looked at Brody. It took him a second, then I saw the realization dawn on him and he looked up at the clock on the wall over the teacher’s desk. “Oh. No man, you actually do have to go now. It’s 15 minutes until they move to the warm-up room. They have to do the _ thing _.”

“The _ thing _?” Chris looked at both of us, confused, then followed Brody to the door.

“Yeah, the pre-show ritual. You can’t be here unless you’ve been initiated. Even Captain America is no exception.”

Chris looked across Brody to me, his eyes wide and questioning. “Sorry,” I shrugged, “I don’t make the rules.” I really didn’t. The ritual pre-dated both Brody and me. My first group of kids had introduced me to the whole process, and I’d carried it on with every group of kids since.

“Okay, well, I’ll see you in the auditorium then, I guess.” I gave him a smile and a little wave and he smiled back, still clearly a little taken aback, then adjusted his hat a little lower over his brow and shoved his hands into the pocket of the hoodie I’d once again loaned him. Brody closed the door behind him.

Brody came to stand next to me on the opposite side of the room from where the kids were beginning to circle up, arms over one another’s shoulders. The ritual was really just the kids telling each other how much they loved one another and what they’d gotten out of the experience, but it had become tradition, part of that tradition being that only ‘family members’ were allowed to experience the ritual, and tradition is very important in theatre.

“So,” Brody leaned down, arms crossed over his chest, to almost whisper in my ear so as not to disturb the ritual, “Chris Evans is here.”

“Yep.” I didn’t look at him.

“Ren said you guys sat together on the bus.” I nodded. “Big bus. Only 12 people in cast and crew.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. Brody was in the first small group of kids I’d unofficially adopted, my ‘first-born child,’ I often joked. He was also empathetic and perceptive and had always been one of the first to pick up on things going on with me. He’d sent me at least weekly texts since my husband had died, sometimes telling funny anecdotes from school or checking up on progress with productions, other times blatantly checking up on me. His mom even checked on me from time to time.

“Don’t make it something it’s not. He’s a good friend to me and a good mentor to them. That’s it.”

“Okay. But just so you know, if it _ was _ something else, no one would judge you for that. You’ve always poured so much of yourself into taking care of everyone else and making other people happy, including everyone in this room. It’s okay to do something to make yourself happy too.”

“Thank you. But that’s not a road I’m ready to go down just yet.” I chuckled a little, quietly, “And I’m pretty sure he’s not even in that neighborhood regarding me. I seriously doubt I’m Chris Evans’s type.” I smiled over at him, but the look he gave back said he wasn’t in on the joke.

By the time Brody and I joined Chris in the auditorium just before my kids took the stage, he’d gotten over being kicked out of the classroom. As soon as I sat down next to him, Brody on my other side, he leaned down and across me to tell both of us, conspiratorially, that the show just before ours had been, “good, but not nearly as good as our kids.” His use of the possessive regarding the kids made me smile just as much as it had the first time. It was sweet, the way he’d taken such ownership after coaching them that first time.

I honestly don’t remember a whole lot of the rest of the competition. I do remember Chris’s hand coming to my forearm on the armrest between us early in the performance, squeezing when Ren hit a particularly emotional scene so powerfully that much of the audience drew in large breaths or let out soft, “Ohs.” I remember him leaning forward, elbows on his knees, as the judges gave their critiques of each show, turning to me and mouthing, “Ignore that,” after one note he clearly didn’t agree with. I remember his fist pump when the competition director announced my kids as state champions, and after that, the way he wrapped me up into a hug as he, Brody, and I watched the kids take the stage to collect their medals and trophy. And I remember falling asleep on his shoulder less than 30 minutes into the three-hour bus ride back to my school, him not waking me until we’d parked.

When we’d gotten back to my house, he’d told me that he’d be okay on his own if I wanted to go straight to bed, but my nap on the bus had been enough rest to allow adrenaline to overtake any lingering exhaustion I had from the previous night’s lack of sleep. When I finally convinced him of that, he grinned like a kid and asked me what Christmas movies I had.

When the whole Griswold crew was standing on their front lawn watching Santa and his reindeer fly through the sky, I did a full-body stretch then turned my head where it had landed on the back couch cushions to look at him smiling softly back over at me. “How does that movie manage to be funny every single year? I’ve seen it literally 30 times, at least.”

He laughed a little, “I don’t know, but it does, doesn’t it?”

I nodded and curled back up on my end of the couch. “Did you want to watch another one or did you want to head to bed?” I sighed. “It sucks that you have to turn around and leave barely 36 hours after you got here. That’s exhausting.”

“Yeah,” he exhaled deeply, “but you were working yesterday, so there was no point coming any earlier, and the early flight was the only one I could get tomorrow.” He shrugged. “It’ll be okay. I’ve dealt with a lot worse.” I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and lifted my eyebrows in acknowledgement and nodded. “Hey, um,” he scooted forward a little so he was almost perched on the edge of the couch and ran the thumb of one hand over the knee of his sweats, “I uh, I wanted to talk to you about something. Before I head back.”

I furrowed my brow and sat up a little straighter, crossing my legs in front of me like a kindergartener. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“I need you to know,” he looked over at me, holding eye contact, “everything I’m about to say - I have no expectations, and we don’t ever need to talk about it again. I love this,” he motioned between us, “and I don’t want it to change. Well, not …” he trailed off and shook his head. “Anyway, I just think you have a right to know. I want you to know.”

I nodded, but I couldn’t say anything. My stomach churned and my hands twisted the fabric at the hem of my pajama top. 

“Okay. Well,” he cleared his throat and focused his eyes on his hands, now both on his knees, “the last time I was here, we talked about you dating, and you said you’d want to date someone who was a friend first. And you mentioned me as if I wasn’t an option, like I was … unattainable, or-or out of reach.” He paused, just for a second, and my heart felt like it would beat out of my chest. “I just wanted to say that I’m not. Unattainable, I mean. For you,” he added quickly, looking over at me for just a split second before he went back to staring at his hands. “I know you’re not ready to date right now and I know that’s not how you see me. But you should know that, if that changes, I’m very much within your reach.”

He waited a couple seconds then pushed himself off the couch, and the whole time, I tried to speak but I couldn’t find my voice. Finally, after I’d watched his hands clench into fists then loosen again three, maybe four times, I choked out, “Chris, I - I’m not - not yet-”

“No, I know.” He turned and smiled down at me, small and sad, but sincere. “And I respect that. 100%. And like I said, I don’t want anything to change. I mean, I know I may have just made things really awkward, but I hope we can get past that because the last thing I want is for either of us to lose this friendship.” I nodded, my throat too tight to try to say anything. The very last thing I wanted was to lose him. He was the first friend I’d made in a very long time, and though he was the newest, he had become one of the closest and most valuable. I’d never needed to be anything with him other than exactly who I was, which included sometimes being vulnerable, or even weak, things I didn’t feel comfortable letting myself be with almost anyone else. He also never treated me like I was broken, or might break any second; he respected everything I’d been through, and supported me when I needed it, but he never acted like it defined me.

“But um, I do think I’m going to head to bed. I’d really like it if we could have breakfast and coffee together in the morning. I’m not asking you to cook for me,” he rushed to clarify. “I saw a box of Cheerios on the counter. I can tear up some Cheerios.” He smiled and I tried to smile back. “And if you feel like it, it’d be great if you’d take me to the airport. But if you don’t want to do either, and you just want to stay in bed until I’m out of your house and your hair, I respect that and I’ll get a taxi or an Uber, no problem.”

He gave me one last half-smile and patted both palms on his thighs then turned toward the hall. 

“Chris -” he stopped and turned, watching me stand off the couch. I rolled my watery eyes at myself for what I was about to ask. “Can I have a hug before you go to bed?” My voice was so small it was almost embarrassing.

“God,” he smiled a little bigger and opened his arms, “of course.” I closed the distance between us and he wrapped his arms around my back, mine winding around his waist as his chin settled onto the top of my head..

I spoke into his chest, my voice muffled. “You know -”

“Don’t,” he cut me off. “We don’t need to talk about it, remember?” I nodded and he turned his head down so that his cheek rested on my hair, then squeezed me a little tighter for a moment and pulled away. “G’night.” He let his hands drag across my back and then my arms as he pulled away, then sidestepped to the recliner to scratch Millie between the ears before heading off to the guest room.

_ *** _

_ 3 days later (mid-December, Year 1) _

I didn’t often text Chris first. It kind of went along with the whole “not making phone calls” thing. But I hadn’t heard from him since dropping him off at the airport three days earlier after a breakfast filled with awkward small talk, and I was afraid that if I didn’t make the first move he wouldn’t either. I wasn’t willing to let our friendship slip through my fingers without giving it a fighting chance, which meant I was willing to put myself out there. 

So, on Monday I told all my kids to bring their medals to school the next day, and on Tuesday I rounded them up and took countless pictures of them on the stage, some with the trophy, some where they posed as their characters, and a couple where they took on their favorite ‘Avengers’ poses. As soon as I got home, I planted myself at the kitchen table and texted the few best pictures to Chris with the message, “We couldn’t have done it without you!” Immediately after, I sent, “I couldn’t have done it without you. I couldn’t have done a lot of things without you.”

“Sure you could’ve,” he responded less than a minute later. “You’re stronger than you think you are.” 

“Thanks, but I was talking about finishing off that batch of waffles I made the other day. NO WAY I was eating all those on my own.”

“Oh, I see, you only want me for my stomach.”

Then, a minute later. “How was your day? Mine started with Dodger throwing up on my pillow, so beat that.”

I curled my nose and squeezed my eyes shut, mortified at the thought of having to deal with that, but more than a little happy that we seemed to be in normal, if disgusting, territory. 

_ *** _

_ 2 ½ weeks later (Christmas, Year 1) _

I rolled over in the bed in my mom’s guest room, the same bed I’d slept in all through high school, and fished for my phone on the nightstand in the dark. 6:07. It was still too early to get up, but I’d been tossing and turning for at least 20 minutes. “Merry Christmas!!” I texted Chris, tacking on a gif from _ National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. _ I hoped he’d put his phone on silent before going to sleep.

It had taken almost no time after I sent him those pictures of the kids for us to get back to our pre-confession comfort level. A couple times I felt like he’d been censoring himself, or holding something back, but in general our conversations - texts every few days and regular Twitter dms, one phone call to firm up the details of our inauguration trip - were as easy as they’d always been. Every day I became a little more grateful for him.

“You’re up early.” He texted back immediately.

“So are you. Please tell me I didn’t wake you.”

Almost as soon as I’d hit ‘send,’ the phone started to ring. “Hey,” I answered almost in a whisper.

“Hey you! Merry Christmas.” I could hear his grin. He’d been telling me how much he loved Christmas since before Thanksgiving.

“You too,” I couldn’t help but smile back into the darkness as I struggled to keep my voice quiet. “You ready to play Santa?”

“Hell yeah. I stayed at Mom’s last night; I’m just waiting on everyone else to get here. What about you? Do you get to see the little ones today?”

My brother had two kids, a boy and a girl, and two step-kids, also a boy and a girl. I loved them all, but I had a real bond with my 11-year-old niece and it would be the first time I’d ever been with her for Christmas. “Yeah, but not until lunchtime. My grandparents are coming over then too. It’s just my mom and me until then.” 

“Are you sick?” He sounded concerned. “You sound hoarse.”

“No, I’m fine. Just trying to be quiet.”

“Uh-oh. Don’t want your mom to know you’re talking to a boy?” His voice was teasing.

“Yeah, something like that.” I kept my voice light, hoping he would take it as a joke. The truth was, I actually didn’t want her to know I was talking to him. I hadn’t told her about our friendship, about anything beyond our interactions in regards to the movie. At first it was because I was worried that she would try to milk the ‘my daughter is friends with a movie star’ aspect of it for her own attention and benefit. As he and I got closer and things got … complicated, I didn’t tell her because I didn’t think she would understand. “She’s still sleeping,” I added on quickly after. “The house is really small and the walls are thin, I don’t want to wake her.”

“I can let you go, if you need.”

“No, I’m good. Unless you need go get ready for the kids.”

“They won’t be here for a little while longer. I’ve got some time.”

_ *** _

_ 2 weeks later (early January, Year 2) _

_“@AshCarolR__ says this is her least favorite combo. BITCH WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE? A word of advice, don't sneak up on this girl in a dark alley, she's Beauty AND a Beast._ _💪🥊__”_

I laughed out loud when I saw the tweet from my favorite Body Combat instructor. I’d seen his husband filming parts of the class, but I thought the video was all Stephen, maybe some wide shots of the class as a whole. I figured they were working on some sort of promotional thing for the gym to post on its various social media pages. I hadn’t ever noticed him focusing just on me.

The combo in question was a series of punches followed by a couple knee-blocks, then finally two kicks in opposite directions, one with each leg. It was one I always struggled with because I usually lost my balance during the kicks, and being the anxious perfectionist that I was, that made me angry at myself. 

I debated internally over whether to retweet the video, knowing that there was a possibility it would just come off as a brag, but I finally decided to do it anyway, with the comment, “_ You caught me on a good balance day! Also, I’ve got a kick-ass instructor to thank for my skills.” _ I was proud of the progress I’d made in the class. I’d been taking Body Combat for a few years, had even gone so far as to get certified as an instructor, but I’d really thrown myself into it after my husband died. It was both an escape and a way for me to blow off some steam. That, combined with the fact that my depression caused me to eat only when I absolutely had to, meant I had lost quite a bit of weight in the first few months, to the point of being unhealthy. By the time I’d met Jon and Chris and we’d started discussions for the movie I’d started to get myself back on track, and by the time I’d filmed the scene with Chris I’d leveled out and found a pretty good balance. I still ate a lot less than I had before, but it was more than I had at my lowest point - I even had a few splurges here and there - and I was actually in the best physical shape I’d ever been - not skinny, but strong. I figured, after everything, it was okay to be proud of that. 

About an hour after I retweeted Stephen’s initial tweet, my dm inbox had started to overflow. Among others, Ren had sent just, “O.M.G.” Jordan, one of my girls who had graduated the year before, messaged simply, “!!!,” and Brody said, “You might want to take another look around your neighborhood.” I didn’t know what all the messages were in reference to. The second to last unread message was from Victoria and said, “Mom. MOM. Omg, what is happening? Is there something you need to tell me???” I was so taken aback - and confused - that I almost forgot there was one more new message.

When I went back to my inbox, I saw that the last message was from Chris. He’d sent me my own tweet. “Holy shit. You’re really good at that! Remind me never to piss you off.” I rolled my eyes at that, but I also couldn’t help but smile. 

When I went back to scroll through my timeline I stopped in my tracks when I got to Chris’s most recent tweet. It was a retweet of Stephen’s, the same one I’d retweeted. 

_ "I love this._  
_ This lady is one of the kindest, gentlest, most caring people I know. She can also, clearly, kick your ass._  
Just let this be a reminder, never mistake someone’s kindness for weakness.”

My stomach flipped, a few times, and I drew my bottom lip between my teeth. It had been a long, long time since someone had been proud of me like that. It felt good.

_ *** _

_ 1 ½ weeks later (mid/late January, Year 2) _

I sat on the couch in the living room area of the hotel suite with Chris, watching a college bowl game between two teams that neither of us was particularly attached to, tuned in simply because it was football. I’d been tucked under the spare blanket I’d pulled from the closet, my knees pulled up to my chest and my hands tucked under my chin, for the entire first half of the game and I was starting to get stiff. I stretched, pushing my legs off the couch straight in front of me and reaching my arms over my head, arching my back so that my head fell backward. When it did, it landed on his arm where he’d laid it across the back of the couch, not wrapping it around me, not touching me at all, actually, but so, so close. My eyes closed when I felt his bicep behind my head, and even when I’d relaxed the rest of my body, my legs folding in front of me on the couch cushion and my hands falling into my lap over the blanket, I didn’t lift my head from his arm. Instead, I thought back over the past few months.

I thought about how often he made me smile, and the way my stomach flipped a little every time I saw his name on my phone, whether it was a call or just a text. I thought about how many times he’d supported me when I was struggling but afraid to talk to anyone else out of fear of appearing weak or marring the image they may have had of me; the way he’d held me that afternoon in my living room as I cried, _ bawled, _ in a way I had never allowed myself to do before, with no expectations and no motive other than to comfort me. His incredible kindness and support with my kids, coaching them on the stage and coming back to actually physically be there for them when they competed at the highest level. I remembered sitting on my couch with him, watching him refuse to make eye contact with me as he told me that he wasn’t unattainable to me, and the feeling I got over the following days and weeks as I realized he was going to keep his word about not letting it change our friendship. But also about how things _ had _ changed, a little bit anyway, because sometimes there were these pauses in conversation, those moments when I knew he’d almost said one thing then caught himself and said something different. And then about how, more and more, I found myself wanting him to say whatever it was that he’d almost said, and wondering what I’d have said in response.

Mostly, I thought about our morning together. I thought about how, at first, my adrenaline and excitement, my pure joy and relief, really, at the fact that I was about to see a new president sworn in had outweighed the cold of the January morning. Eventually, though, the cold took over, seeping under my jacket and into my gloves. The National Mall was packed, with spectators standing shoulder-to-shoulder, or, in our case, back-to-front. So he felt it when I started to shake. “Cold?” he asked, right in my ear. I nodded, a shiver running up my spine and shaking my shoulders. He sighed. “Wimpy southerners.” I looked up at him over my shoulder and he smirked and winked, then wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me in a little tighter. “This okay?” I just nodded. The body heat definitely helped, but even if I hadn’t needed it, I wouldn’t have pulled away, relishing in the way he held me to him.

“Why don’t you come spend the summer with me and we’ll see how _ you _do, Mr. New England.”

“Okay,” was all he said, and he rested his chin on top of my head. Without consciously deciding to do so, I brought my hands up to rest on top of his where they held onto his biceps in front of my shoulders. He hooked his thumbs over my knuckles and I tucked my fingers under his palms.

My mind was brought back to the present when he shifted next to me on the couch. I lifted my head off his arm and turned my body so I was facing him instead of the television. When my left knee, still tucked under the blanket, landed just on top of his as I resituated, his eyes darted down to it for a second before coming back up to mine. “I had dinner with Brody last weekend before he went back to school,” I told him. “He asked about you.”

“Yeah?” He smiled over at me and angled his body toward mine, just a little bit.

I nodded. “He asked if I’d figured out yet that you have feelings for me.”

He laughed, really more of harsh exhale through his nose than anything. “Did you tell him I’ve not exactly been hiding it?” 

“I did.” I brought my right arm up to rest my elbow on the back of the couch and he shifted his own arm back to give me room, bending it at the elbow and dropping his hand so that the backs of his fingers brushed my ribs. “So then he asked me,” I stopped, took a deep breath, worried my bottom lip between my teeth. My left hand came up from my lap to rest on his chest and I traced his collarbone through his t-shirt with my fingers as he brought his right hand to sit lightly on my knee over the blanket. “He asked me if I’d figured out yet that _ I _ have feelings for _ you. _”

I wasn’t sure what I thought he might say to that, but he didn’t say anything at all. He just looked back at me, watching my eyes as they darted between his then drifted to his lips. His right hand closed around my knee, lightly, and the left one flattened gently against my back. He tilted his head the tiniest bit toward mine but didn’t close the distance between us. All invitations, but none of them pushing. I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath, and when I opened them he was still looking back at me, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. I thought back to him telling me that he was very much within my reach, and I reached. 

My nose brushed his as I leaned in and he closed his eyes and turned slightly toward the contact. His lips were parted when mine met them, and as he fit them around my own, my hand flattened against his chest. My heart pounded and all the air left my lungs. When I pulled back, slowly, reluctantly, he let me go but tilted his head down so that his forehead rested against mine. I dragged my bottom lip between my teeth and ran my tongue over it, half-believing I could taste him there. Finally, I let my eyes flutter open to see him smiling back at me, his lips still only inches from mine.

“Is that a yes?” he asked, and I could feel his breath on my skin.

“Yes,” I whispered, and the hand on my back pressed just slightly, pulling me back into him but allowing me the opportunity to push back. The last thing I wanted was to push back. The moment his lips touched mine again, his other hand landed on the side of my neck, thumb tracing along my jaw. I slid my hand over his shoulder and onto the back of his neck as his lips closed around my bottom one, not pulling, really, but not letting go either. I found myself instinctively wanting to part my lips for him, to slide my tongue into his mouth, even to lay back on the couch and pull him down over me. I pulled away instead and sucked in a deep breath.

“Okay?” His eyes searched mine and he rubbed his thumb between my shoulder blades soothingly.

“Yeah,” I nodded and slid my hand up his chest and over his shoulder to wrap it around the back of his neck, stretching my fingers up so they slid through his hair. I leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I’m good. I just,” I pulled back a little so I could see him more clearly, “this has to be slow.” He nodded. “I want this. I want _ you _ ,” my cheeks burned and I had to drop my eyes from his for a second. I covered my embarrassment with a small laugh and he lowered his hand from my neck back to my knee, squeezing and leaning in to kiss my forehead. “I still don’t know how much time is the right amount, but I’m _ hoping _ ,” I squeezed my eyes shut and brought both hands to rest on his shoulders, “that a year is, if not the _ right _ amount of time, then at least _ enough _time.”

I wasn’t finished, but my brain was racing, jumping from one thought to another without focusing on any of them long enough to form coherent sentences. I stopped talking, trying to make things fit together in my head in a way that would make sense when I said them out loud. He waited me out, lifting his hand when I unfolded my legs and stretched them over his lap then bringing it to my ankle when I rested both feet flat on the other side of his thighs.

“I’m afraid,” I finally started again, “that if we don’t go slow, I’m going to get scared, or freak out, and mess up something that, I think, could be really, really good.”

“It can be great,” he tucked my hair behind my ear and slid his hand back down my spine until it rested in the center, not quite on my lower back, but no longer between my shoulder blades.

“And that’s why I want to be careful, to,” I rolled my eyes up a little, searching for the right words, “to protect it, give it a fighting chance. Because if I’m not careful, I’ll get caught up in how good, and kind, and, and, god,” I laughed a little at myself, “_ beautiful _you are,” he closed his eyes and smiled a little and blushed a light pink, “and I’ll do something that, as much as I really, really want to be, I don’t think I’m ready for. Yet.”

“Sooo …”

“Slow.”

“Slow.” He nodded. “Does slow include calling you whenever I want, just because I want to, without having to make up half-assed, semi-legitimate reasons to talk to you?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Does it include holding your hand, or wrapping my arms around you when we’re together? No excuses, just doing it because it feels good to have you close?”

“I really hope you do.”

“And,” one corner of his mouth quirked up in a smirk and his eyes narrowed mischievously, “does it mean I get to keep kissing you?”

“God,” I tugged on his shoulders, “you better.” He chuckled and met me halfway, pressing his lips against mine a little more firmly than before. I slid my hands over his shoulders and let my arms hang over his back, crossed at the wrists, as he pulled me in a little closer with the hand on my back. His other started to slide up my calf from my ankle and I wasn’t sure if I was really glad the only pajamas I’d packed were shorts, or if I really regretted it. He stopped just below my knee and his fingers dug into my skin when I parted my lips and slid my tongue past his and into his mouth. He pushed back against the kiss and when I withdrew my tongue his teeth grazed my lower lip. Then, without notice, he pulled back and opened his hand, dragging his palm back down my leg until he closed his hand around the top of my foot.

He pressed his forehead to mine and breathed, slow and heavy, through his nose. “Slow,” he said, with his eyes closed.

“Slow,” I echoed, my own breath a little ragged.

“I think,” he pulled back and moved his arm back to the back of the couch, “that for right now, slow means we should go back to watching football.”

I nodded. The last thing I wanted was to stop kissing him, but he was right.

“And I meant what I said about wanting to be able to hold you,” and that wasn’t exactly how he’d said it the first time, but I liked hearing it that way, “but you know we both have to sleep in our own beds tonight, right? Because …” he widened his eyes and shook his head.

“No, you’re right,” I agreed and I brought my hands back to his shoulders, putting a little more space between our upper bodies. “If there’s not at least one closed door between us I’m going to go back on everything I just said, and, as much as it sucks, I really do think it’s what’s best. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t apologize,” I went to lift my legs and bring them back across his lap, but he pressed my foot into the couch cushion, “but don’t do _ that, _ either. Where’re you going?”

“You said ‘back to watching football.’”

“Yeah,” he furrowed his brow and looked at me almost incredulously, “but I didn’t say you had to go way back over there.”

I grinned, “It’s not that far.” I acted like I was going to lift my legs again and he closed his hand around my ankle. 

“I’ll be good. Promise. Look,” he reached for the blanket that had bunched around my waist when I’d stretched my legs across his lap and pulled it back down so that it covered me from my hips to my feet. “There. Stay put?”

I laughed and shook my head at him, my eyes closed. “Yeah,” I said, “I think I can handle that.”

He hummed as his arms came around my shoulders and he pulled me in until my head landed on his shoulder. “Good.” He kissed the top of my head and I settled in a little more, wrapping my arms around his waist.

I would have to go to my own bed eventually, because I meant what I’d said about needing to put a closed door between us. My need to take things slowly had absolutely nothing to do with not wanting him and everything to do with wanting to not screw things up because I’d moved too quickly and subsequently panicked. But, for the time being, wrapped up in his arms was a really comfortable place to be, and I planned to stay there for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it for this one. But if you liked it, I hope you'll read the others in the series.

**Author's Note:**

> All stories in this collection will be an anthology of connected one-shots that exist within the same universe; and the officially no longer follow chronological order. They may eventually be reorganized into novel-format, but that would be quite a way down the road.


End file.
